Gaza Massacre Toll Tops 24,000
Date
1/15/2024 9:17:57 PM
(MENAFN- Gulf Times) health officials in Hamas-run Gaza reported Monday more than 24,000 deaths in the war with Israel which has rocked the region, and the resistance fighters released a video announcing the death of two Israeli hostages.
Deadly violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, exchanges of fire over Israel's border with Lebanon, and strikes by United States forces and Iran-backed Yemeni rebels in the Red Sea, have all raised fears of an escalation beyond the Gaza Strip.
The war has created a humanitarian catastrophe for the 2.4mn people in the besieged strip, the United Nations and aid groups warn, and reduced much of the territory to rubble.
The health ministry in Gaza, ruled by Hamas since 2007, reported more than 60 "martyrs" overnight, in what the group's media office described as "intense" Israeli bombardment.
The Hamas government media office said two hospitals, a girls' school and "dozens" of homes were hit.
In a statement released with the video, Hamas's armed wing the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades blamed "the Zionist army's bombing" for the death of two male hostages.
The video showed a woman hostage, speaking under duress, revealing that two men she was held captive with had been killed in captivity.
Hospitals in Gaza have been hit repeatedly since the war erupted, and the World Health Organization (WHO) says most of them are no longer functioning.
AFPTV footage showed smoke billowing over Khan Yunis, southern Gaza's main city, as explosions could be heard from nearby Rafah, on the territory's southern border with Egypt.
On Sunday, thousands of Palestinians swamped two aid trucks delivering flour and tinned food to warehouses in Gaza City.
Attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels, who say they act in solidarity with Gaza, have disrupted shipping in the vital Red Sea maritime trade route, triggering strikes on scores of rebel targets last Friday by US and British forces.
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