Israel kills 37 in devastating Gaza air strikes as world’s eyes turn to Lebanon

The Israeli army on Tuesday killed at least 37 Palestinians in seven air strikes across the Gaza Strip and two men in an incursion in the occupied West Bank, according to health officials.

The Palestinian health ministry said two Israeli air strikes on two houses in Nuseirat refugee camp on Tuesday killed at least 13 people, including women and children. 

A third strike targeted a school used as a shelter for displaced Palestinians in the Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City, killing at least seven people. 

Later on Tuesday, two additional Israeli attacks killed five Palestinians in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip and in the Zeitoun suburb of Gaza City, according to health officials.

Additionally, an Israeli air strike targeting a tent for displaced people in Khan Younis killed six Palestinians, and a seventh air strike on the same day hit a car in western Khan Younis, killing six more Palestinians. 

The Israeli army has claimed the attacks targeted Hamas fighters, but provided no evidence for that. 

Prior to the latest fatalities, the Palestinian health ministry on Tuesday updated the death toll of Palestinians since the start Israel’s offensive on 7 October to 41,638, with more than 96,460 wounded and at least 10,000 missing people who are presumed dead.

Those killed include at least 16,800 children, 11,400 women, around 1,000 health workers, 174 journalists and 220 UN workers.

‘Eyes on Lebanon’

The attacks on Gaza take place as Israel wages a separate war on Lebanon after killing the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, and multiple senior Lebanese and Iranian commanders in Beirut over the past week. 

Palestinians are reportedly worried the conflict in Lebanon could further prolong the war on Gaza.

“The eyes of the world now are on Lebanon while the occupation continues its killing in Gaza. We are afraid the war is going to go on for more months at least,” Samir Mohammed, 46, a father of five from Gaza City told Reuters.

‘The eyes of the world now are on Lebanon while the occupation continues its killing in Gaza’

– Samir Mohammed, Gaza City

“It is all unclear now as Israel unleashes its force undeterred in Gaza, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, and God knows where else in the future.”

Meanwhile, an analysis by Oxfam published on Tuesday revealed that the Israeli army has killed more children and women in Gaza over the past year than the equivalent period of any other war in the last two decades.

A report by the organisation Every Casualty Counts examined information on over 11,000 children killed across the first 2.5 years of the Syria conflict, an average of over 4,700 deaths a year, compared to more than triple that in Gaza.

The record number of women and children killed in Gaza does not include those among nearly 20,000 people who are either unidentified, missing or buried beneath rubble.

“These staggering figures are both appalling and heartbreaking,” Sally Abi Khalil, Oxfam’s Middle East and North Africa director, said.

“Influential actors in the international community have not only failed to hold Israel to account, they are also complicit in the atrocities by continuing to unconditionally supply it with arms. It will take generations to recover from the devastating impacts of this war and there is still no ceasefire in sight.”

Elsewhere, in the occupied West Bank, an Israeli incursion on the Balata refugee camp killed at least two Palestinians and wounded three medics, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS).

PRCS said Israeli soldiers “deliberately targeted” three emergency medics with live ammunition as they tried to evacuate casualties from the refugee camp in Nablus.

The PRCS said the soldiers atttacked the medics despite prior coordination by the charity with the Israeli army.

“[Israeli] forces are blocking ambulances from entering the camp to evacuate our wounded teams, and we remain unable to evacuate the wounded EMTs [emergency medical technicians]” it said on X.

The charity posted a video showing several bullets that pierced through an ambulance during the attack.

The Palestinian health ministry said Abdul Hakim Mamoun Abdul Hamid Shaheen, 33, was shot dead in the Old City of Nablus, shortly after it reported that one other man was killed by Israeli troops in the Balata camp.