The Israeli army on Monday continued bombing and blowing up homes and buildings across the Gaza Strip, continuing its war.
Eyewitnesses told Anadolu Agency that the Israeli army heavily shelled northern Gaza neighbourhoods, including Al-Saftawi and Jabalia areas. Loud explosions were heard as the Israeli army shelled homes and buildings in northern Gaza, the eyewitnesses added.
Areas of Gaza City, including the southern and southeastern neighbourhoods of Al-Sabra and Zeitoun, were also hit by artillery fire, while Israeli quadrocopter drones targeted residential houses near Al-Jalaa Street in the northwestern part of the city.
In the central Gaza Strip, Israeli army artillery struck the northwestern neighbourhoods of Nuseirat refugee camp and also fired machine-gun fire from army military vehicles and helicopters, wounding at least one Palestinian, according to eyewitnesses in the area.
Al-Mawasi neighbourhood in the western part of Rafah city in the southern Gaza Strip came under fire from Israeli army artillery boats, while the northern parts of the city also came under artillery fire, witnesses said.
Since the cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on October 7, 2023, Israel has killed more than 45,500 people in Gaza and reduced the enclave to rubble.
In November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Israel also faces a genocide case in the International Court of Justice for its war against the enclave.
Baby freezes to death in Gaza
Gaza health officials said a 20-day-old baby died on Sunday from “extreme cold” as the war-ravaged Palestinian territory experiences winter weather.
On the same day, an Israeli airstrike on a hospital killed at least seven people. The child Jumaa al-Batran died of cold and his twin brother is in the intensive care unit at a local hospital, Gaza’s health ministry said in a statement.
Marwan al-Hamas, head of field hospitals in Gaza, confirmed the deaths. He said the total number of children “who have died of extreme cold” in recent weeks has reached five.
Gaza health ministry officials said on Saturday that the Israeli military had detained the director of a hospital in the north, which the World Health Organisation (WHO) said had been closed following the Israeli raid. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said in a statement:
“The occupation forces took dozens of health workers from Kamal Adwan Hospital to a detention centre for interrogation, including the director Hussam Abu Safiya.”
The Gaza Civil Defence Agency also confirmed the detention of Abu Safiya and said its director for the northern areas, Ahmed Hassan al-Kalut, was among those detained.
Strike on hospitals
Israeli troops struck the upper floor of al-Wafaa hospital in central Gaza City, killing seven people, the Civil Defence Agency said in a statement.
The Israeli military said it carried out a “precision strike” against members of a Hamas air defence unit operating from “a command and control centre in a building that formerly served as Al-Wafaa Hospital.” Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry said the hospital was still in use. The Israeli military said:
“Currently, the building does not serve as a hospital.”
The strike on Al-Wafaa hospital came a day after the military completed a raid on Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza. Israeli tanks also shelled the top floor of the Arab Baptist Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City near the X-ray department, Gaza health officials said on Sunday.
Gaza’s health ministry said Sunday that 30 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory in the past 24 hours, bringing the total war death toll to 45,514.
Jean-Luc Melenchon wrote on X:
“The hospital in northern Gaza is not working, its director has been arrested, the genocide plan is constantly expanding its murderous perimeter. Shame on those who allow this to happen. Shame on those who participate in it! May justice come upon them all.”
