Gaza’s Health Ministry said Thursday that Israeli forces killed at least 41 Palestinians and wounded 131 in the previous 24-hour period.
The ministry’s numbers only include dead and wounded Palestinians who have been brought to hospitals and morgues. Medical sources told Al Jazeera that at least 45 were killed by Israeli attacks on Thursday.
Strikes were reported in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp and in Gaza City in the north. An Al Jazeera reporter said Israeli troops began a ground incursion into Beit Lahia, a northern city that’s been under a total siege since the beginning of October and has been declared a disaster zone due to the lack of food, water, hospitals, doctors, services, and communications.
Northern Gaza has been under Israeli siege as Israeli forces are attempting to carry out an ethnic cleansing plan known as the “general’s plan.” The campaign involves imposing a starvation blockade, and the amount of aid that entered Gaza in October was the lowest in any month since October 2023.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said that the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia had again come under Israeli attack. “Israeli occupation forces bombed the desalination plant for the kidney dialysis department, the engineering and maintenance department, and water tanks inside Kamal Adwan Hospital,” the ministry wrote on Telegram.
“Israeli occupation aircraft bombed the third floor of Kamal Adwan Hospital, and due to the bombing, the medicine warehouse burned down, medical supplies that were received 5 days ago from the World Health Organization,” the ministry added.
Hospital workers were injured as a result of the renewed Israeli attacks. The hospital had barely any staff as it was before the latest attack after Israeli troops arrested dozens of medical workers. “The hospital has no medical teams – doctors, surgeons, orthopedics. More than 33 people between doctors and nurses have also been arrested,” Eid Sabbah, the director of nursing at Kamal Adwan, told Al Jazeera.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said the latest violence brought its death toll to 43,204 and the number of wounded to 101,641, figures that are considered undercounts. A group of American healthcare workers who volunteered in Gaza have estimated the US-backed Israeli bombing campaign and siege has killed at least 118,908 Palestinians, including over 60,000 who have starved to death.
