LAST UPDATE | 25 Oct 2024

TWELVE PEOPLE HAVE been killed by an Israeli air strike on a group of people who were waiting in northern Gaza for a humanitarian aid delivery, according to the region’s civil defence agency.

North Gaza has been under an intense Israeli military operation with thousands of civilians said to be cut off from humanitarian aid and protection, amid dwindling food and other life sustaining essentials, according to the UN.

Israel’s major operation in north Gaza has come under strong criticism as tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians are currently trapped in the region.

The drone strike targeted an area near to the Shati refugee camp in western Gaza City, according to a spokesperson.

A witness to the strike, Mustafa Abu Aita, said a crowd had been waiting for aid to arrive. He said the two missiles hit a small bus and a group of people waiting on the road.

More than 770 people have been killed since the operation began on 6 October. 

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas said yesterday that Israel aims to “empty” the Gaza Strip of Palestinians, especially in the north.

“It has been a full year since the greatest catastrophe that the Palestinian people experienced after the Nakba of 1948, which is the Israeli war in which crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing are being committed in the Gaza Strip,” Abbas said in a speech to members of the BRICS group.

“This is part of a plan to empty the territory of its people, especially now in northern Gaza where the occupation forces are resorting to starving the population there.”

On Tuesday, a Dr Mohammed Obeid of the Kamal Adwadn Hospital, an orthopedic with Doctors Without Borders, described the  situation at the northen hospital.

“There is death in all types and forms in Kamal Adwan hospital and north Gaza. The bombardment does not stop. The artillery does not stop.

“The planes do not stop. There is heavy shelling, and the hospital is targeted too. It just looks like a movie; it does not seem real.”

He described the conditions in Kamal Adwan Hsopital as “disastrous”.

“The hospital is completely overwhelmed. There are injured people everywhere, outside and inside the hospital, and we do not have medical and surgical equipment to treat them.

“Ambulances cannot move. We cannot reach the bodies of the people killed and cannot save the injured ones who lie in the streets. Many of them died before reaching the hospital, and others died inside the hospital as we could not treat their wounds,” he said.

Israel killed 38 in Khan Younis

Earlier, in the city of Khan Younis – in the south of the region – 38 people were killed in Israeli attacks on two homes, Gaza’s health authorities said. Fourteen were killed in an airstrike and six others were killed in a separate raid.

Medics at the Nasser Medical complex confirmed the casualties. The Israeli military said following the attack that it had eliminated a “number of terrorists” from the air and ground in the region.

#UPDATE Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli air strikes hit two homes at dawn on Friday in Khan Yunis, the territory's main southern city, killing at least 20 people ➡️ https://t.co/qiHkJoF383 pic.twitter.com/NApiUHRL2M

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) October 25, 2024

Israel’s siege, bombardment and invasion of Gaza has killed at least 42,847 since October last year.

With reporting by AFP and Muiris O’Cearbhaill