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At least 70 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Christmas Eve in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in the centre of Gaza, Palestinian authorities in the besieged strip said.
Reports say 23 people were killed in another Israeli strike on Khan Younis bringing the total number of deaths overnight to over 100 marking the date as one of the deadliest.
The Palestinian health ministry said that at least 12 women and seven children were among those who died in a late-night strike, which destroyed several houses in the refugee camp.
Ashraf al-Qidra, a spokesperson for the health ministry, called the airstrike a “massacre”, adding that the death toll was likely to climb.
Palestinians search for bodies and survivors in the rubble of the destroyed house of the Manasra family following an Israeli air strike in the southern Gaza Strip on Christmas Day
(EPA)
Footage from the camp showed dozens of injured, including children, being rushed to the nearby Al-Aqsa hospital, while some of the bodies were piled outside in body bags.
It comes as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will expand its Gaza ground offensive in the coming days despite international efforts to halt the fighting.
Speaking to members of his Likud Party on Monday, Netanyahu said the war “isn’t close to finished.”
Netanyahu spoke after returning from a visit to troops fighting inside Gaza. The comments come as Egypt is floating an ambitious proposal to end the Israel-Hamas war.
“We are not stopping. We are continuing to fight and we are expanding the fight in the coming days,” Netanyahu said. “The will be a long battle and it isn’t close to finished.”
Egypt put forward an ambitious, initial proposal to end the Israel-Hamas war with a cease-fire, a phased hostage release and the creation of a Palestinian government of experts who would administer the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank, a senior Egyptian official and a European diplomat said Monday.
A father who lost his daughter and grandchildren in the strike told the BBC the family had fled from the north for safety in central Gaza.
At least 70 people are believed to have been killed in the attack, Palestinian authorities say
(EPA)
“They lived on the third floor of one of the buildings,” he said, adding that the walls collapsed on them. “My grandchildren, my daughter, her husband – all gone.
“We are all targeted. Civilians are targeted. There is no safe place. They told us to leave Gaza City – now we came to central Gaza to die,” the man told the broadcaster.
The Israeli military said it was reviewing the incident.
An aerial shot showing the scale of the damage
(REUTERS)
“Despite the challenges posed by Hamas terrorists operating within civilian areas in Gaza, the IDF is committed to international law including taking feasible steps to minimise harm to civilians,” the Israeli forces said.
The Palestinian health ministry said another 10 members of one family were killed in an Israeli strike on their house in the Jabalia camp in northern Gaza.
On Saturday, an Israeli airstrike killed 76 members of an extended family, rescue officials said as the Israel-Hamas war continued on its 12th week.
The Israeli military said it was investigating
(EPA)
Israel said it lost 14 soldiers amid intense fighting in the Gaza Strip over the weekend. The Israeli military suffered losses in central and southern Gaza as its forces battled Hamas militants in “close-quarters combat” in Khan Younis near the territory’s border with Egypt.
Christmas celebrations were cancelled in Bethlehem, the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank city, the biblical birthplace of Jesus.
“Tonight, our hearts are in Bethlehem, where the Prince of Peace is once more rejected by the futile logic of war, by the clash of arms that even today prevents him from finding room in the world,” Pope Francis said at Christmas Eve Mass in Rome’s St Peter’s Basilica.
