The military wing of Hamas says nine hostages including four foreigners were killed over the past 24 hours as a result of the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip. The Qassam Brigades said Saturday the hostages were killed when Israel’s military bombarded areas where they were being held.
The Associated Press has the story:
Hamas says 9 hostages have been killed in Israeli airstrikes
Newslooks- (AP)
BEIRUT — The military wing of Hamas says nine hostages including four foreigners were killed over the past 24 hours as a result of the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
The Qassam Brigades said Saturday the hostages were killed when Israel’s military bombarded areas where they were being held.
The announcement came a day after the group said 13 hostages it is holding were killed in bombardment, raising the total hostages killed to 22.
The claim could not be independently verified.
Hamas fighters took more than 100 people hostage during last Saturday’s attack on southern Israel and military posts surrounding Gaza.
Israel’s military ordered hundreds of thousands of civilians living in Gaza City to evacuate ahead of a feared Israel ground offensive. The directive came Friday on the heels of what the United Nations said was a warning it received from Israel to evacuate 1.1 million people living in northern Gaza. Palestinians and some Egyptian officials fear that Israel ultimately hopes to push Gaza’s people out through the southern border with Egypt.
Currently:
- People are scrambling to evacuate northern Gaza even as Hamas told Palestinians to stay home
- 2. No decision on a ground offensive has been announced, although Israel has been massing troops along the Gaza border
- 3. An Israeli shell landed in a gathering of international journalists covering clashes on the border in southern Lebanon on Friday, killing one and wounding six
- 4. The war has claimed at least 3,200 lives since Hamas launched an incursion on Oct. 7
- 5. United States Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has assured Israel: “We have your back”
Here’s what’s happening in the latest Israel-Hamas war:
UNRWA SAYS ITS SHELTERS IN GAZA ARE ‘NOT SAFE ANYMORE’
BEIRUT — The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees is calling on Israeli authorities to protect all civilians sheltering at the agency’s premises across the Gaza strip including those in northern Gaza and Gaza City.
UNRWA said that despite the order to evacuate more than 1 million people from the northern parts of the Gaza Strip and Gaza City to the south, many people — particularly pregnant women, children, older people and people with disabilities — will not be able to flee the area.
“They have no choice and must be protected at all times,” UNRWA said.
UNRWA said its “shelters in Gaza and northern Gaza are not safe anymore. This is unprecedented.”
HOSPITAL PATIENTS SPENT PART OF THE NIGHT ON THE STREET IN GAZA, MEDICAL AID GROUP SAYS
CAIRO — Patients and medical staff of Al Awda Hospital in Gaza spent part of their night on the street “with bombs landing in close proximity,” following Israel’s orders to evacuate the facility, the medical aid group Doctors Without Borders said.
Scott Hamilton, a spokesman for the aid group, which is known as MSF, said some of the medical staff and all patients have been moved to another location.
“But the situation remains extremely complicated and chaotic,” he told The Associated Press. “We call on Israel once again to cease the indiscriminate bloodshed, withdraw their ultimatum.”
RAFAH CROSSING TO OPEN TO ALLOW FOREIGNERS TO EXIT, EGYPTIAN OFFICIALS SAY
CAIRO — Egyptian officials said the southern Rafah crossing would open later Saturday to allow foreigners to exit.
UNRWA SAYS DRINKING WATER FOR GAZA IS A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH
BEIRUT — The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees says hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced over the past 12 hours in the Gaza Strip.
Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA Commissioner-General, warned that the Gaza Strip is running out of clean water and fuel is urgently needed in order to have safe drinking water.
Lazzarini said in statement that more than 2 million people are at risk as water runs out adding that “it has become a matter of life and death.”
Lazzarini said Gaza’s water plant and public water networks have stopped working and people are now forced to use dirty water from wells, increasing risks of waterborne diseases.
“Nearly 1 million people have been displaced in one week alone,” he said adding that at the U.N. base in the southern Gaza Strip — where UNRWA has moved its operations — drinking water is also running out.
He called for lifting the blockade that Israel imposed on Gaza adding that if drinking water is not available, people will start dying of severe dehydration, among them young children, the elderly and women.
ISRAEL SAYS IT HIT MILITANTS TRYING TO CROSS FROM LEBANON
JERUSALEM — The Israeli army said Saturday that it had struck militants trying to infiltrate Israel from Lebanon.
The Israel Defence Forces released infrared footage on Friday showing what they say are the strikes on militants attempting to cross the Israel border from Lebanon. It was not clear which group the alleged militants belonged to. On Friday, Hezbollah said its fighters fired several rockets at four Israeli positions along the border and the Israeli army said it had attacked Hezbollah targets with drone strikes.
“The Lebanese government bears responsibility for every attack launched from Lebanon towards our sovereignty. Anyone who tries to cross the border into our lands will be killed,” the Israeli military’s Arabic spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, said in a statement posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
An Israeli shell landed in a gathering of international journalists covering clashes on the border in south Lebanon on Friday, killing Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and injuring six other journalists.
Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht told The Associated Press Saturday, “We are aware of the incident with the Reuters journalist and we are looking into it.”
He did not confirm that the journalists had been hit by Israeli shells, but called the incident “tragic,” adding, “We’re very sorry for his death.”
