Gaza death toll nears 45,400 as Israel kills 23 Palestinians

CAIRO/JERUSALEM, Dec 27 (Reuters): Israeli forces on Friday raided the Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of three medical facilities on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, torching large sections and ordering dozens of patients and hundreds of others to leave, officials said.

Elsewhere in Gaza, Israeli strikes killed at least 25 people, including 15 people in a single house in Gaza City, medics and the civil emergency service said.

The Palestinian health ministry said contact with staff inside the hospital in Beit Lahiya, which has been under heavy pressure from Israeli forces for weeks, had been lost.

"The occupation forces are inside the hospital now and they are burning it," ministry director Munir Al-Bursh said in a statement.

The Israeli military said it had tried to limit harm to civilians and had "facilitated the secure evacuation of civilians, patients and medical personnel prior to the operation", but gave no details.

Meanwhile, At least 23 more Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, pushing up the overall death toll since last year to 45,361, the Health Ministry in the enclave said on Wednesday.

A ministry statement added that some 107,803 others were injured in the ongoing assault.

“Israeli forces killed 23 people and injured 39 others in three massacres of families in the last 24 hours,” the ministry said.

“Many people are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them,” it added.

Israel has continued a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip since a Hamas attack on Oct. 7 last year despite a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire.

The second year of genocide in Gaza has drawn growing international condemnation, with officials and institutions labeling the attacks and blocking of aid deliveries as a deliberate attempt to destroy a population.

At least 11 Palestinians were killed and several others injured early Friday as Israeli airstrikes targeted two homes and civilians in Gaza City amid ongoing artillery shelling across the besieged territory.

A medical source told Anadolu that four of the Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike on a home in the Shujaiya neighborhood.