15 people killed in Israeli strike on Gaza

Fifteen people were killed and more than 20 were injurd in this massacre a fter midnight in a house where displaced people were living

FE Team | Published: January 01, 2025 21:28:48

GAZA, Jan 01 (AFP): Gaza's civil defence agency said on Wednesday that an overnight Israeli air strike targeting a house in Jabalia, in the territory's north, killed at least 15 people.
"Fifteen people were martyred and more than 20 were injured in this massacre after midnight in a house where displaced people were living in the town of Jabalia," civil defence agency's spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP. The Israeli military, when contacted, said it was looking into the reported strike.
Bassal said that those living in the house were members of the Badra, Abu Warda, and Taroush families who had sought refuge there.
Most of Gaza's 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once since the start of the war on October 7 last year.
Since October 6, the Israeli military has been conducting a major land and air offensive in northern Gaza, particularly targeting the city of Jabalia and its adjacent refugee camp, in what it described as an effort to prevent Hamas militants from regrouping there.
The assault has since been expanded across the northern areas of the Palestinian territory and last week targeted a major hospital which is now empty of its staff and patients.
On Friday, the Israeli military raided the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, describing it as "one of the largest" operations targeting militants since the start of the war.
The military said it killed more than 20 militants and detained over 240 others, including the director of the hospital, who it claims, is a suspected Hamas militant.
Rights groups and the World Health Organisation have called for the immediate release of Hossam Abu Safiyeh, whose detention is seen as a blow to the territory's devastated healthcare system.
Seven babies die from
winter cold in a week
Yahya al-Batran clutched the tiny clothes of his dead newborn son Jumaa, just days after the baby died from the cold in their tent in war-torn Gaza.
"We are watching our children die before our eyes," said the 44-year-old.
Their baby was one of the seven children who died from the cold within the span of a week, the Hamas-run territory's health ministry said on Monday.
"We fled the bombing from Beit Lahia, only for them to die from the cold here?" said the child's mother Noura al-Batran, referring to their hometown in northern Gaza.
The 38-year-old is still recovering from giving birth prematurely to Jumaa and his surviving twin brother, Ali, who is being treated in an intensive care unit at a hospital in southern Gaza.
Completely destitute and repeatedly displaced by the Israel-Hamas war, the Batran family live in a makeshift tent in Deir el-Balah made of worn-out blankets and fabric.
Like hundreds of others now living in a date palm orchard, they have struggled to keep warm and dry amid heavy rains and temperatures that have dropped as low as eight degrees Celsius (46 degrees Fahrenheit).
"We don't have enough blankets or suitable clothing. I saw my baby start to freeze, his skin turned blue and then he died," she cried.
The twins were born prematurely and she said the doctor decided to take the babies out of the incubator despite the family not having access to heating.
On a rain-soaked mat, the father hugged his older children tight with blankets and worn-out cloth in a corner of their tent.
He then placed a small pot of water on the stove to make tea, which he then mixed with dry bread to make a meagre lunch for his family with a little cheese and the thyme-based spice blend called zaatar.