Israeli strikes kill multiple at shelter and hospital in Gaza, as Blinken seeks aid
Global News
The new attacks came as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in the region trying to find ways to ease the plight of the civilians caught in the fighting.
Israeli military strikes killed multiple civilians Saturday at a U.N. shelter and hospital in the main combat zone in the Gaza Strip as the assault intensified on the besieged enclave’s Hamas rulers amid growing international uproar over the soaring death toll and deepening humanitarian crisis.
Israel’s military has said it has encircled Gaza City, the target of its offensive to crush Hamas, but on Saturday offered a three-hour window for residents trapped by the fighting to flee south.
The new attacks came as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in the region trying to find ways to ease the plight of the civilians caught in the fighting. He met with Arab foreign ministers on Saturday in Jordan, the day after talks in Israel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who insisted there can be no temporary cease-fire until all hostages held by Hamas are released.
The Israeli military has repeatedly demanded that northern Gaza’s 1.1 million residents flee south as it escalates bombardment of the north and tightens the noose around Gaza City. However, some of those traveling south were killed during their journey in recent days, and Israel has continued bombing in the south, saying it is striking Hamas targets.
With wide swaths of residential neighborhoods leveled in airstrikes, most of northern Gaza’s remaining residents, estimated at around 300,000, have sought shelter in U.N.-run schools and in hospitals where they hope they’ll be safe. But deadly Israeli strikes have also repeatedly hit and damaged those shelters.
On Saturday, two strikes hit a U.N. school-turned-shelter just north of Gaza City, killing several people in tents in the schoolyard and women who were baking bread inside the building, according to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees.
Initial reports indicated that 20 people were killed but the agency has not yet been able to verify the figure, said spokeswoman Juliette Touma.
The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza reported that 12 people were killed at the school and another 50 people wounded. Some 18,000 Palestinians had been sheltering there.