Israeli airstrikes kill at least 19 Palestinians, including women and children

GAZA — At least 19 Palestinians, including several women and children, were killed on Saturday in Israeli attacks targeting both northern and southern areas of the Gaza Strip.

Gaza’s Civil Defense reported that five Palestinians died and others were wounded in an airstrike near the Dar Al-Arqam School in northwestern Gaza City. Another airstrike hit a family home in eastern Gaza City, killing a woman and injuring several others.

Medical sources said that 11 Palestinians, including three women and four children, were killed, and many others were injured in Israeli shelling targeting a house in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood of eastern Gaza City. In northern Gaza, paramedics recovered the body of a Palestinian killed in an artillery strike in Beit Hanoun.

In a separate incident, medical sources reported that one Palestinian was killed and six others injured in an Israeli bombing of a tent sheltering displaced people in the Al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. This area is classified as a “humanitarian safe zone” by the Israeli army.

Since Israel began its Gaza offensive last October, it has declared certain areas as “safe zones” only to continue attacks on them or en route to promised safety. Despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, Israel’s offensive has resulted in over 41,000 deaths, mostly women and children, and more than 95,000 injuries, according to local health authorities.

The Israeli onslaught has displaced nearly the entire population of Gaza amid an ongoing blockade that has led to severe shortages of food, clean water, and medicine. — Agencies