Shafaqna India: Despite renewed US criticism of the high civilian toll, Israeli forces continued to bomb separate areas in Gaza, including a fuel station and a UN-run school in the Nuseirat refugee camp, leaving 57 more Palestinians, including a journalist, dead on Tuesday.
The Gaza health ministry reported that an Israeli strike on a fuel station in Al-Mawasi, southern Gaza, killed 17 people and wounded at least 26. The Palestinian Red Crescent initially reported eight dead in a separate strike at almost the same time on the UN-run Al-Razi School in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. In Rafah, a southern border city where Israeli forces have been operating since May, five Palestinians were killed in an airstrike on a house, according to Gaza health officials. In nearby Khan Younis, a man, his wife, and two children were killed.
One of the airstrikes hit near a tented area housing displaced families in Attar Street in the humanitarian-designated area of Al-Mawasi, the health ministry said.
Hours earlier, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed Washington’s “serious concern” following the deadly Israeli strikes in Gaza during meetings with Israeli officials.
“We have seen civilian casualties come down from the high points of the conflict… but they still remain unacceptably high,” said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller after Blinken met Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi.
On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to ramp up pressure on Hamas. “This is exactly the time to increase the pressure even more,” to bring home all the Israeli prisoners and to “achieve all the war objectives,” he said.
Indirect talks on ending the devastating war have been brokered by Qatar and Egypt, with US support, but months of negotiations have failed to bring a breakthrough with Netanyahu determined to achieve “the war objectives”.
The Israeli strikes have forced 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.4 million people to flee their homes. Many have sought refuge in UN-run schools, seven of which have been hit by Israeli strikes since July 6.
“Why do they target us when we are innocent people?” asked Umm Mohammed al-Hasanat, sheltering with her family at a UN-run school in Nuseirat, which was among those hit.
Among those killed was local journalist Mohammad Meshmesh, taking the number of journalists killed in the conflict to 160, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said.
Palestinian Red Crescent medics said they recovered four bodies from a house outside the southern city of Khan Yunis and another from Nuseirat camp.
Since October 2023, Israeli air and ground strikes have claimed at least 38,713 lives, mostly women and children, according to figures from the Gaza health ministry.
Israel’s military also detained scores of Gazans, who complained of torture, rape, and other abuses in custody that Israeli authorities have denied.
After visiting the detained Palestinian journalists, Advocate Khaled Mahajna said prisoners had recounted guards using “electric prods” on inmates’ bodies.
Five Israeli human rights groups have moved court over conditions at the Sde Teiman desert camp where Gazans are being held, though Israeli officials insist they act within the bounds of international law.
