PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: Israeli strikes killed dozens more people overnight, the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said on Thursday, including in the territory's south, where Israel has intensified operations.The renewed strikes came as medicine for hostages held by the militants, and fresh aid for civilians entered the Palestinian enclave under a newly brokered deal, mediator Qatar said.
TOLL ON ALL Palestinians mourn over the covered bodies of loved ones killed in Israeli bombardment in the city of Rafah, southern Gaza Strip on Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024. AFP PHOTO
The ministry said 93 people had been killed, including 16 in a single strike on a house in the southern city of Rafah, where many people have fled to.
"The strike left 16 killed, among them women and children, and 20 injured," the ministry said.
The Hamas government reported dozens of strikes, including on the southern city of Khan Younis and Palestinian refugee camps in central Gaza.
Plumes of black smoke rose over Khan Younis at dawn after the strikes.
Fighting has ravaged Gaza since Hamas' unprecedented October 7 attacks on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of about 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) tally based on official Israeli figures.
At least 24,448 Palestinians, most of them women, children and teenagers, have been killed in Israeli bombardments and a ground offensive, Health Ministry figures show.
Hamas and other militants seized about 250 hostages during the October 7 attacks, and about 132 remain in Gaza, including at least 27 believed to have been killed.
The fate of those still in captivity has gripped Israeli society, leading to pressure against the government for their release.
A broader humanitarian crisis in besieged Gaza is marked by the threat of famine and disease, fueling international calls for a ceasefire.
On Wednesday night, Qatar's Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari said on X, formerly Twitter, that medicine for hostages and aid entered Gaza "over the past few hours" under the agreement announced on Tuesday following French and Qatari mediation.
Two planes earlier arrived in the Egyptian city of El-Arish near the Gaza border with 61 tons of aid provided by Doha and Paris, including medicine and food, Qatar said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross welcomed the deal as "a much-needed moment of relief," under which 45 hostages are expected to receive medication.
France said the drugs would be sent to a hospital in Rafah, given to the Red Cross, and divided into batches before being transferred to the hostages.
'Our life is gone'
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the army was hitting Khan Younis particularly hard to dismantle the Hamas leadership, which the army says has already been done in northern Gaza.
Israel's army announced the death of one soldier on Wednesday, bringing to 193 the number of troops killed in Gaza since ground operations began in late October.
At the Abu Yussef Al-Najjar hospital in Rafah, Palestinians stood in front of bodies wrapped in shrouds, mourning loved ones killed in Israeli bombardment.
Hassan Gebril Franjee, a resident of central Gaza's Nuseirat refugee camp, returned to find his home had been destroyed.
"I wish they would stop the war because the situation is devastating. Our youth is gone. Our whole life is gone," he told AFP.
The United Nations says the war has displaced roughly 85 percent of Gaza's people, many of whom have crowded into shelters and struggle to get food, water, fuel and medical care.
At Israel's Nir Oz kibbutz, where about one in four residents was killed or kidnapped in the Hamas attack, Yossi Schneider is clinging to hope for his relative Kfir Bibas, a baby, despite Hamas' announcing his death.
The youngest hostage kidnapped by Hamas was less than nine months old on October 7 and would be celebrating his first birthday this week.
"We are thinking about them every day, every second, every minute," Schneider said of Bibas and his missing brother and mother.
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