GAZA CITY, Palestine
At least ten Palestinians, including a child, were killed and others injured in Israeli air strikes on several districts of the city of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday.
Medical sources told Anadolu that six Palestinians, including two children, lost their lives and several others were injured in the attack on Al-Mawasi, an area declared a “humanitarian security zone” by the Israeli military.
Eyewitnesses told Anadolu that the airstrike hit a group of civilians, including two children, who were seeking shelter against the wall of a Quran memorization center run by the Ministry of Religious Endowments in the Al-Mawasi region.
The target area was “full of displaced people and their tents,” the witnesses added.
They pointed out that the region was one of the “humanitarian security zones” designated by the Israeli army and that residents had been advised to seek refuge there.
However, in this so-called “safe zone” there is a lack of essentials and people are overcrowded.
Later that day, an Israeli airstrike on a house in the Talhiyya area, east of Khan Younis, killed another four Palestinians, including a child, and injured others.
Medical sources told Anadolu that four Palestinians, including a child, and several injured people were hospitalized following the airstrike.
The airstrike targeted the Maamar family’s house in the Talhiyya area, whose residents, according to witnesses, had to be evacuated on Thursday on orders of the Israeli army.
With the issuing of evacuation orders and the announcement of a military operation in Khan Younis by the Israeli army on Friday morning, there was a significant wave of displaced persons towards the western areas of the Gaza Strip.
Israeli air strikes on the eastern areas of Khan Younis have been intensifying for several days.
Israel has ignored a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire and is facing international criticism for its ongoing brutal offensive on Gaza since October 7 last year following a cross-border attack by the Palestinian Hamas.
Since then, according to local health authorities, nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and over 91,700 injured.
More than ten months after the start of the Israeli war, large parts of the Gaza Strip lie in ruins and there is a crippling blockade of the supply of food, clean water and medicine.
Israel is accused of genocide before the International Court of Justice. The court ordered that Israel immediately cease its military operations in the southern city of Rafah. Over a million Palestinians had sought refuge there from the war before the invasion on May 6.
*Written by Mohammad Sio
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