Gaza: Latest Strikes Kill at Least 14  12/09 06:03

   

   DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) -- Israeli airstrikes in central Gaza killed 
at least 14 people including children Sunday, Palestinian health officials 
said, while the bombing of a hospital in northern Gaza wounded a half-dozen 
patients.

   Israel's military continues its latest offensive against Hamas militants in 
northern Gaza, whose remaining Palestinians have been almost completely cut off 
from the rest of the territory amid a growing humanitarian crisis.

   One airstrike flattened a residential building in the urban Bureij refugee 
camp Sunday afternoon, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the nearby 
city of Deir al-Balah, where the casualties were taken.

   At least nine people were killed including six children and a woman. An 
Associated Press journalist saw the bodies at the hospital's morgue.

   Earlier on Sunday, another Israeli strike hit a tent in the Nuseirat refugee 
camp, killing at least five people including two parents and their two 
children, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said.

   In northern Gaza, the Health Ministry said a bombing targeted the Indonesian 
Hospital wounding six patients, one of them seriously. It is the largest 
hospital north of Gaza City.

   "We demand international protection for hospitals, patients and medical 
staff," the ministry said in a statement that also urged safe passage to and 
from hospitals, more medical supplies and fuel and safe evacuation of the 
wounded.

   The Israeli military Sunday evening said it was unaware of any attack on the 
Indonesian Hospital "in the last three to four hours."

   Meanwhile, the military said it briefly closed the key Kerem Shalom crossing 
after fighters launched mortar shells several meters (feet) from the nearby 
humanitarian corridor toward its troops. It said Gaza's main cargo crossing was 
reopened after those who fired were "eliminated," though it added that the 
arrival and distribution of humanitarian aid was delayed.

   Kerem Shalom is the only crossing between Israel and Gaza that is designed 
for cargo shipments and has been the main artery for aid since the Rafah 
crossing with Egypt was shut in May. Last month, nearly two-thirds of aid 
entering Gaza came through Kerem Shalom.

   A second cold, rainy winter is beginning in Gaza, with hundreds of thousands 
of Palestinians in squalid tent camps and reliant on international aid.

   The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on 
Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 
250 people. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third believed 
to be dead.

   Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed over 45,600 Palestinians in Gaza, 
more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, 
which does not say how many were combatants. The Israeli military says it has 
killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.