Israeli strikes on Gaza Strip kill at least 42 people, including children

MIDEAST

Children watch as the bodies of victims from overnight Israeli army strikes at multiple locations in the central Gaza Strip are laid together for funeral prayers, at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, on Friday. According to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, 30 people, including 10 women and 7 children, were killed in several attacks overnight in central Gaza. ABDEL KAREEM HANA — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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By Wafaa Shurafa, Fatma Khaled and Sam Mednick

The Associated Press

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip>> Israeli strikes killed at least 42 people in Gaza, including children, overnight into Friday, hospital and emergency response workers said, as health workers and Israel’s military traded claims over reported evacuation orders for two hospitals in the territory’s largely isolated north.

The assertions over Al-Awda and Indonesian hospitals occurred as stalled ceasefire talks to end nearly 15 months of war were set to resume in Qatar.

Workers at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said more than a dozen women and children were killed in strikes in central Gaza, including in Nuseirat, Zawaida, Maghazi and Deir al-Balah. Dozens of people were killed across the enclave the previous day.

“We woke up to the missile strike. We found the whole house disintegrated,” Abdul Rahman Al-Nabrisi said in the Maghazi refugee camp.

Later Friday, officials at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said that an airstrike killed three people in a car in Zawaida in central Gaza. And the Civil Defense, first responders affiliated with the Hamas-run government, said that an airstrike killed seven people, including four children and a woman, in the Shijaiyah neighborhood outside Gaza City, and another strike killed two people at Al-Samer junction in Gaza City.

The Israeli army said in a statement that during the past day it had struck dozens of Hamas gathering points and command centers throughout Gaza. And it warned people to leave an area of central Gaza, saying that it would attack following launches toward Israel. The military said that a few projectiles entered from central and northern Gaza, with no injuries reported.

Freelance journalist Omar al-Derawi was among those killed Friday. A press vest was placed on his shroud. The Committee to Protect Journalists said last month that more than 130 Palestinian reporters have been killed in the war.

While the U.N. Security Council met Friday to discuss the war’s effects on hospitals in Gaza, a hospital in the north, Al-Awda, said in a statement that Israel’s military had told workers and patients to evacuate immediately. It didn’t give details.

And a nurse at the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza told The Associated Press they had received orders to evacuate. The nurse said that they were still there with 19 people, including eight patients, and workers had asked for ambulances.

Israel’s military said it wasn’t “operating to evacuate” Al-Awda or Indonesian hospitals. “Messages were sent to reiterate to officials in the health authorities that there is no need to evacuate the hospital,” it said of Indonesian.

Neither side’s statements could be verified immediately. The Israeli military heavily restricts the movements of Palestinians in Gaza and has barred foreign journalists from entering the territory throughout the war, making it difficult to verify information.

The war’s effect on hospitals has been a contentious issue as the health system largely has been devastated. Israel repeatedly has accused Hamas of operating out of hospitals and said that the military tries to protect the facilities. The military has carried out raids on several hospitals, including Al-Awda and Indonesian, during the war.

U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk told the Security Council on Friday that a recent report by his office documented “at least 136 strikes on at least 27 hospitals and 12 other medical facilities in Gaza, which caused significant death and injury among doctors, nurses, medical staffers and other civilians and damaged or destroyed many of the buildings targeted.” He said both sides must protect the facilities.

Hamas said in a statement that indirect ceasefire negotiations would resume Friday, a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that he authorized a delegation from the Mossad intelligence agency, the Shin Bet internal security agency and the military to continue the talks in Qatar.

The U.S.-led talks have stalled repeatedly. Netanyahu has vowed to press ahead in Gaza until Hamas is destroyed.