Airstrikes in Gaza kill 38 people, Palestinian officials say | The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip – Israeli attacks on residential areas in the southern Gaza Strip killed 38 people on Friday, including 13 children from the same extended family, Palestinian health authorities said.

In northern Gaza, health authorities reported that Israeli forces had raided Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of the few remaining functioning medical facilities in the area. Israel has renewed its offensive against Hamas in the north in recent weeks, and aid groups are sounding the alarm about the dire humanitarian situation.

In Lebanon, three journalists working for news outlets allegedly linked to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and its patron Iran were killed in Israeli strikes in the southeast of the country.

FITTING IN KHAN YOUNIS

The Health Ministry in Gaza reported that Israeli airstrikes and shelling hit the southern city of Khan Younis, killing 38 people and wounding dozens.

The Israeli military said its troops were dismantling militant infrastructure and killing Hamas militants in the southern city. It said the Gaza Health Ministry's figures “do not match the information it has” but did not provide its own estimate of the number of casualties. Palestinians said the neighborhood was hit without warning.

Palestinian Civil Defense footage showed rescuers pulling the bloodied bodies of nine children from the al-Farra family from the ruins.

The victims were taken to the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis and to the European Hospital, where records showed at least 15 members of the al-Farra family had been killed. Six members of the Abdeen family were also killed, health officials reported.

Medical organization Doctors Without Borders said one of its employees – identified as 41-year-old Hassan Sobh, a father of seven who had worked for the charity for five years – was killed in the attack. It said Sobh was the eighth worker killed in last year's Israel-Hamas war.

OPERATIONS NEAR THE HOSPITAL

In response to reports that it had stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, the Israeli military said only that it was operating “in the area” of the hospital, based on intelligence indicating the presence of militants and militant infrastructure.

The children's hospital is one of three medical facilities in the region that is somewhat operational after more than a year of war. Since the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of hospitals as part of its renewed attack on Hamas militants in northern Gaza, doctors have warned that severe shortages of food, medicine and other supplies have created a humanitarian emergency.

On Friday, the Gaza-based Health Ministry reported that Israeli troops rounded up medical workers and displaced people seeking shelter in the hospital and forced the men to strip, a common practice that Israel says is intended to ensure that detainees do not carry weapons hide. The ministry said some Palestinians had been arrested, without specifying the number.

The Palestinian Civil Defense said Israeli forces had arrested two of its employees, including a local rescue coordinator and a firefighter. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the arrests.

The Israeli military said Friday that three soldiers were killed in Gaza this week, without giving details. This brings the number of Israeli soldiers killed since the start of the ground offensive in the Gaza Strip to 359.

JOURNALISTS KILLED

A rare Israeli airstrike in southeast Lebanon hit an apartment building where journalists were staying on Friday, leveling the building and killing three media workers sleeping there. Thick dust kicked up by the bombed cars marked “PRESS” parked in front of the ruins of the guesthouse.

Al-Manar TV, operated by Hezbollah, and Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV, a channel linked to the militant group, said the station's employees were among those killed.

The Israeli army said it was aware of reports that the three journalists were killed in the airstrike, which it said targeted a Hezbollah military structure from which militants operated. “The incident is currently under review,” it added, without elaborating.

According to Magen David Adom of the Israeli Emergency Service, at least two people were killed by shrapnel in northern Israel on Friday in rocket fire from Lebanon. The rockets landed in Majd Al-Krum, an Arab city in the north of the country, hitting a gymnasium. Rescue workers said six other people were injured, including an 80-year-old man who remains in serious condition.

Information for this article was contributed by Mohammed Zaatari and Adam Schreck of The Associated Press.