AFP – Dozens of people were killed or unaccounted for after Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip, a hospital director and the civil defence agency said yesterday.
One strike near the Kamal Adwan hospital in the north of the territory left “dozens of people” dead or missing, the facility’s director Hossam Abu Safiya told AFP.
The process of retrieving the bodies and wounded continues, he said, adding, “Bodies arrive at the hospital in pieces.”
Another strike was reported in a neighbourhood of Gaza City.
“We can confirm that 22 martyrs were transferred (to hospital) after a strike targeted a house” in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.
“There is a headless body. We don’t yet know who this is,” Moataz al-Arouqi, who lives in the area, told AFP.
On the Gaza front, the United States vetoed on Wednesday a United Nations (UN) Security Council push for a ceasefire that Washington said would have emboldened Hamas.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said the death toll from the resulting war has reached 43,985 people, the majority civilians. The UN considers the figures reliable.
In September, Israel expanded the focus of its war from Gaza to Lebanon, vowing to fight Hezbollah until tens of thousands of Israelis displaced by the cross-border fire are able to return home.
With Hochstein in Lebanon, Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on Wednesday said that any ceasefire deal must ensure Israel still has the “freedom to act” against Hezbollah.
In a speech, Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem threatened to strike Israeli commercial hub Tel Aviv in retaliation for attacks on Lebanon’s capital.
“Israel cannot defeat us and cannot impose its conditions on us,” Qassem said in his televised address.
Since expanding its operations from Gaza to Lebanon in September, Israel has conducted extensive bombing primarily targeting Hezbollah strongholds.
More than 3,544 people in Lebanon have been killed since the clashes began, authorities have said, most since late September. Among them were more than 200 children.
STRIKES IN LEBANON
Yesterday, strikes hit the southern suburbs of Beirut, following an evacuation call by the Israeli military. Strikes also hit south Lebanon, including the border town of Khiam where Israeli troops are pushing to advance, according to Lebanon’s official National News Agency.
On Wednesday, Israel said three soldiers had been killed in combat in southern Lebanon – bringing the total fallen to 52 since the start of ground operations on September 30.
