News Mania Desk / Piyal Chatterjee / 16th December 2024
Relatives of Palestinians slain by Israel in Khan Younis came on Monday to bring their white-shrouded remains to their graves. Palestinian health authorities claimed on Sunday that at least 20 people, including children, were killed in a strike at a school for displaced families in the southern Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military announced on Monday that it had attacked Hamas terrorists operating from a property that had previously operated as a United Nations-run school. It stated that the property also acted as a training center for preparing and planning assaults against Israeli soldiers.Women wailed as men took family members’ bodies away on medical stretchers and put them on the ground for funeral rites.
“People were safe, staying in their homes (shelters) after they prayed the dinner prayer. They were sitting, sleeping, and staying put in their places,” said Manal Tafesh, whose brother and his children were among those killed.
The military accuses Hamas of utilizing civilian areas including as hospitals, schools, and mosques for military reasons. Hamas dismisses the charges as an Israeli ruse to “justify indiscriminate killing of civilians”. The Israeli bombing continued on Monday. Palestinian health authorities said that strikes across the area had killed at least ten individuals.
According to medics, four people were killed in an airstrike in Beit Lahiya, a town on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip where the army has been operating since October, three in Israeli tank shelling near the cemetery of Nuseirat camp in central areas, and three more in Rafah in the south.
According to Israeli officials, the conflict began on October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian militant group Hamas surged into Israel, murdering 1,200 people, the majority of whom were civilians, and carrying over 250 prisoners back to Gaza.
Israel subsequently began an air and land invasion that killed about 45,000 people, the majority of whom were civilians, according to Hamas-run Gaza authorities. The campaign has uprooted practically the entire population, leaving much of the enclave in ruins.A push by Egypt, Qatar, and the United States to achieve a truce that would involve a hostage arrangement has gathered traction in recent weeks, but there has been no sign of a breakthrough.
