General
Israel Pummels Gaza and Lebanon With Hundreds of Deadly Airstrikes
Gaza’s health ministry reported that dozens of people had been killed in a residential area of Khan Younis, as Israel launched a barrage of attacks across the region on Friday.
Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip on Friday left dozens dead and cut off communications between the outside world and one of the last functioning hospitals in the enclave’s north, according to the Gaza health ministry and the World Health Organization.
It was a day of bloodshed and destruction both in Gaza, where Israel has stepped up its campaign against the remnants of Hamas, and across Lebanon, where Israel is at war with Hezbollah. A barrage of Israeli airstrikes stretched from the Syrian border with Lebanon to Beirut, the capital, and the Israeli military said five of its soldiers were killed amid clashes with Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon.
In Gaza, the toll among Palestinians continued to climb with the Gazan Health Ministry reporting that Israeli forces had killed 38 people and injured dozens more in strikes in the southern city of Khan Younis, where residents said there were no warnings before the attacks. Witnesses said some of the dead were children, which appeared to be supported by videos and photos shared on social media, distributed by news agencies and verified by The New York Times.
The Israeli military said only that in an unspecified part of southern Gaza, it had “eliminated a number of terrorists from the air and ground and dismantled numerous terrorist infrastructure sites.”
Scores more people were reported killed this week in the northern reaches of the enclave, where the Israeli military is returning to fight a regrouped Hamas presence in some of the same areas where it had routed the group after invading the territory late last year.
