The Israeli air and artillery bombardment continued on several areas of the northern and southern Gaza Strip today, Thursday, leaving dozens of martyrs and wounded. While the Ministry of Health in Gaza confirmed that 350 martyrs and 900 wounded arrived at Gaza hospitals during the past 24 hours, Israel announced the arrest of about 700 Palestinians in the northern Strip.
The northern areas of the Gaza Strip witnessed intense air strikes and artillery shelling for hours, specifically concentrated in Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, the Jabalia refugee camp, and the Shujaiya neighborhood, east of Gaza City, amid clashes with heavy weapons taking place between the Palestinian resistance and the occupation forces.
21 Palestinians were martyred and dozens injured in an Israeli bombing of a residential house in the Shaboura camp in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip. Four Palestinians, including a child, were also martyred, and others were injured in an Israeli bombing that targeted a house in the Wadi al-Salqa area in the central Gaza Strip.
This morning, more than 15 martyrs and dozens of wounded, including children and women, were recovered in an Israeli bombing of two two-story buildings owned by the Salah family in the Batn al-Sameen area, south of the city of Khan Yunis.
In turn, the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that the total number of martyrs in the Strip since the start of the Israeli war had risen to 17,177, and the number of injured had reached 46,000.
Ministry spokesman Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra said that the Israeli bombing since the start of the war has targeted 130 health institutions, causing the death of 290 health personnel and destroying 102 ambulances.
Al-Qudra explained that the northern Gaza Strip has no health coverage at all, and that the Strip’s hospitals have completely lost their capacity, pointing out that the health and humanitarian situation in shelters is catastrophic, and that the displaced are exposed to the risk of famine and epidemics.
Siege and arrest
In a related context, Manhattan Tribune’s correspondent reported that the Israeli occupation forces surrounded a school housing thousands of displaced people in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, in light of the presence of martyrs and injuries inside the school.
The besieged people issued a distress call from inside the school, with medical and ambulance crews unable to reach them.
Manhattan Tribune also obtained special scenes and testimonies from hundreds of families who were forced to leave two schools to which they were displaced in the vicinity of the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip.
Journalist Hossam Shabab, for Manhattan Tribune, documented scenes of dozens of families leaving the two schools and arriving at Jabalia camp, after instructions from the Israeli army for the displaced to leave immediately.
After leaving the Kuwait and Aleppo schools in the vicinity of the Indonesian Hospital, displaced people reported that dozens of martyrs were lying on the ground inside and around the school. They confirmed that Israeli snipers continued to directly target the displaced people inside the school.
One of the displaced people confirmed that they were exposed to direct fire inside the school while trying to get water.
A Palestinian trapped inside Khalifa School in Beit Lahia to Manhattan Tribune: Whoever of us is martyred, we bury him in the school because of the stifling siege, and the occupation forces surround the school from all sides#News #Gaza_War pic.twitter.com/lw5W21haj0
– Manhattan Tribune Palestine (@AJA_Palestine) December 7, 2023
Hundreds arrested
For its part, the official Israeli Broadcasting Authority said on Thursday that Israel has administratively arrested about 700 Palestinians in Gaza since the beginning of the war on October 7.
The authority said, “The Israeli army and the Shin Bet Security Service have, to date, arrested about 700 people in Gaza, and their detention has been extended in an administrative procedure under the Unlawful Combatants Law.”
She pointed out that “this number does not include the Palestinians who were arrested around the Gaza Strip on the 7th of last October,” and whose numbers have not been determined.
The Broadcasting Corporation had previously indicated that the Israeli army had established an investigation and detention center for Palestinians who were arrested from inside the Gaza Strip.
Special for the island A catastrophic situation and an accumulation of martyrs and wounded at a single medical point in northern Gaza that receives the wounded after hospitals are out of service.#Gaza_War #video pic.twitter.com/dh6ekGX4R5
– Manhattan Tribune Palestine (@AJA_Palestine) December 7, 2023
A human tragedy
Humanly, the Regional Director of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the Near and Middle East, Fabrizio Carboni, told Manhattan Tribune that the numbers do not reflect the scale of the tragedy that the people of Gaza are experiencing.
He stressed that the bombing and destruction happening in Gaza is beyond the capacity of any organization to deal with it.
In turn, Martin Griffiths, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, said that there must be an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
He added that the pace of the military attack in southern Gaza is a repetition of what it was in the north and that no place is safe, stressing that international humanitarian organizations have one clear message, which is that what is happening in Gaza must stop immediately.
In France, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Paris is very concerned about the humanitarian situation in Gaza and that civilians are suffering from a fragile situation that makes them vulnerable to diseases.
