At Least 40 Killed in Israeli Attacks across Gaza

Moath al-Kahlout, an Al Jazeera correspondent on the ground in northern Gaza, reported that at least 40 people were killed in the recent Israeli attacks.

These attacks included targeting individuals filling their water containers and missile strikes on homes.

This escalation marks one of the most rapid mass killings of civilians in Gaza since the initial weeks of the Israeli war.

At least 15 people, including women and children, were killed and many were wounded in the bombardment of a residential area near Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza this morning.

“An entire residential block was bombed by Israel,” said one resident. “We pulled children out of the rubble. There are many families who are still under the rubble. Most of them were inside their homes, and they have displaced people.”

A witness described a massive explosion following multiple air strikes targeting the residential block.

The injured were transferred to the hospital, which is critically short on medical supplies and basic necessities.

In another incident, at least eight people, including women and children, were killed and ten were wounded when Israeli artillery shelling targeted Palestinians filling water containers in the al-Faluja area, west of Jabalia camp, in northern Gaza on Saturday.

“We were displaced to the Faluja area, which is considered a safe area, and suddenly this place was shelled by the Israelis. We do not know where to go,” a witness said.

Disturbing video footages shared online showed the aftermath of the attack, with blood pooling in the area and shrapnel damaging shops and homes.

Further devastating reports came from the Jabalia refugee camp, where the Israeli military targeted an evacuation center sheltering displaced families.

The Israeli military withdrew from the area, but as soon as people came out of the evacuation center, they were hit by an air strike, killing 15 people at the gate and injuring others.

There is nowhere to take the injured, as the closest health center in Tall az-Zaatar is accessible only through areas controlled by the Israeli military, which is heavily guarded with armored vehicles and tanks.

The Jabalia refugee camp was established by the UN in 1948 to house Palestinians displaced after the Nakba, or catastrophe, referring to the Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948.

Located in northern Gaza, it had been the most populated refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, housing 26 UNRWA-run schools.

In the early weeks of Israel’s war on Gaza, Jabalia was struck multiple times by Israeli forces, including a strike on a school sheltering thousands of displaced Palestinians.

Gaza’s Health Ministry reported that more than 50 people were killed and 150 were wounded in that attack. The Israeli military claimed the attack targeted Palestinian fighters and alleged that dozens were killed in a "vast underground tunnel complex" beneath the camp.

In December, an Israeli attack on the camp killed at least 90 Palestinians, leaving the camp in ruins.

In early February 2024, Israeli forces withdrew from the northern parts of the Strip, claiming to have destroyed Palestinian resistance as a fighting force in those areas. However, on Monday, Israeli forces re-entered northern Gaza and resumed shelling in Jabalia.

Since October 7, Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed at least 35,386 Palestinians and wounded 79,366, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The ministry added that 83 people were killed and 105 injured in the latest 24-hour reporting period.