Israeli strikes in Gaza kill more than a dozen Palestinians
DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli air raids in the Gaza Strip killed more than a dozen people Friday night and Saturday, hospital and local authorities said. In Israel, protesters again poured into the streets for another large protest over the government’s failure to secure the return of the remaining hostages in Gaza.
In central Gaza’s urban refugee camp of Nuseirat, Al Awda Hospital said it received the bodies of nine people killed in two air raids. One hit a residential building early Saturday, killing four people and wounding at least 10, the hospital said, while five people were killed in a strike on a house in western Nuseirat.
Separately, Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, central Gaza’s main hospital in the town of Deir al Balah, said a woman and her two children were killed in another strike on a house in the nearby urban refugee camp of Bureij early Saturday.
In the northern part of the Gaza Strip, an airstrike on a school-turned-shelter for displaced people in the town of Jabaliya killed at least four and wounded about two dozen others, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense authority, which operates under the territory’s Hamas-run government. Israel’s military said it struck a Hamas command post embedded in a former school compound.
The war began when Hamas and other militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people, primarily civilians, and taking about 250 hostage. Hamas is believed to still be holding more than 100 hostages; Israeli authorities estimate about a third are dead.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas released a video of California-born Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was killed with 5 other Israeli hostages in Gaza.
Anger again led large crowds of Israelis into the streets Saturday night, a week after one of the largest demonstrations of the war following the discovery of the bodies of six hostages in Gaza and after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resisted pressure for a cease-fire deal and declared that “no one will preach to me.”
“I think even those who were maybe reluctant to go out, who are not used to [protesting], who are sad but prefer to be in private space within their sadness, understood our voice must join together to one huge scream: Bring the hostages with a deal. Do not risk their lives,” said a protester in Tel Aviv, Efrat Machikawa, niece of hostage Gadi Moses.
Israel has been under increasing pressure from the United States and other allies to reach a cease-fire deal. But a sticking point in talks is Netanyahu’s insistence on continued Israeli control of the Philadelphi corridor, a narrow band along Gaza’s border with Egypt where Israel contends that Hamas smuggles weapons. Egypt and Hamas deny it.
Since Oct. 7, Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed well over 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. The ministry says more than 94,000 people have been wounded.
Israeli attacks have turned much of Gaza to rubble and caused humanitarian and health crises. Health workers are wrapping up the second phase of a polio vaccination campaign designed to prevent a large-scale outbreak in the territory.
The vaccination drive was launched after health officials confirmed the first polio case in the Palestinian enclave in 25 years, in a 10-month-old boy whose leg is now paralyzed. The nine-day campaign by the United Nations health agency and partners began Sept. 1 in central Gaza and aims to vaccinate 640,000 children younger than 10, an ambitious effort during a devastating war that has destroyed Gaza’s healthcare system.
The second phase of vaccinations in the south was in its final day Saturday, the Gaza Health Ministry said, before moving to the north and concluding Monday. The ministry designated dozens of vaccination points across the southern cities of Khan Yunis and Rafah.
Mohammad Abu Al-Qumsan lost his children, wife, and mother-in-law in an Israeli strike that hit a Gaza Strip apartment building while he was away.
In the occupied West Bank, violence has surged. A more than weeklong Israeli military operation in the town of Jenin left dozens dead.
Israeli forces “besieged the area and brought in bulldozers,” said a resident, Mahmoud Al Razi. “As you see, they destroyed the whole area.”
A day after an American protester was shot and killed in the West Bank, her family urged President Biden to order an independent investigation.
Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, of Seattle, who also holds Turkish nationality, died after being shot in the head, two Palestinian doctors said. She had been demonstrating against Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Witnesses said she was shot during a moment of calm following earlier clashes.
The White House has said it was “deeply disturbed” by the killing and has called on Israel to investigate. The Israeli military said it was looking into reports that its troops had killed a foreign national while firing at an “instigator of violent activity” in the area of the protest.
Eygi’s family said in a statement, “We welcome the White House’s statement of condolences, but given the circumstances of Aysenur’s killing, an Israeli investigation is not adequate.” They called the recent university graduate a “ray of sunshine” and an advocate for human dignity.
More than 500,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, a territory captured by Israel in 1967. Increasing Israeli raids, attacks by Palestinian militants on Israelis and attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians have left more than 690 Palestinians dead since the Israel-Hamas war began 11 months ago, according to Palestinian health officials.
Along the border with Lebanon, near-daily clashes continued between Israeli forces and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
An Israeli drone strike hit a Lebanese Civil Defense team fighting a fire in the town of Froun, killing three volunteers and wounding two others, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said. The blaze was sparked by a previous Israeli strike, the statement said. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Israel’s military said some 45 rockets were fired at northern Israel in several barrages, many targeting the Mt. Meron area but falling in open areas. Several rockets fell in Shlomi and around the city of Safed. There were no injuries. The military later said its jets struck Hezbollah military infrastructure and a rocket launcher in the area of Qabrikha in southern Lebanon.
Associated Press writers Shurafa reported from Deir al Balah, Magdy from Cairo and Jeffery from Ramallah, West Bank. AP writer Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington contributed to this report.
