Israel said its warplanes had struck 70 targets across Gaza in the past 24 hours, while an airstrike in Jenin killed a “key” ‘A person has died.
The attack was carried out by fighter jets and helicopters on Friday night and killed Islam Kamayse, a “senior terrorist operative in the Jenin camp” who was responsible for a series of attacks in the area, the Israel Defense Forces said.
“A number of high profile terrorists were on the premises,” it said in a statement posted on Telegram.
The al-Quds Brigades, an armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, confirmed in a statement that one of its members was killed and several others injured during the Israeli attack.
According to the al-Quds Brigades, Mr. Kamaise was the leader of a Jenin battalion affiliated with Islamic Jihad.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said one person was killed and eight others were injured and were being treated in hospital.
In a related operation in the city about six months ago, a drone attack killed five men, who the Israel Defense Forces said were members of a “terrorist organization.”
Dozens of Palestinians were killed or injured Saturday as Israeli troops and tanks rolled into parts of the crowded northern Gaza Strip that they had so far avoided in the more than seven-month war, doctors and residents said.
Residents said the insurgents had stormed the streets, but had so far been spared from ground attacks. Medics said 15 Palestinians were killed and dozens injured in one attack.
Gaza’s Health Ministry and Civil Emergency Authority said teams had received dozens of calls about possible injuries, but were unable to carry out searches as ground and air strikes continued.
The outbreak of conflict between Israel and Hamas on October 7 unleashed a wave of violence in the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967.
The Palestinian Authority reports that more than 500 Palestinians have died at the hands of Israeli forces and settlers since the start of the conflict. At least 20 Israelis were also killed during the same period, according to a tally by Agence France-Presse (AFP) based on official Israeli data.
In Gaza, Israeli tanks and fighter jets shelled parts of Rafah on Friday, while Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants fired anti-tank missiles and mortars at troops massed in the east, southeast and inside the Rafah border crossing. It was announced that it had been launched. Egypt, Reuters reported.
One person was killed and another passenger was seriously injured when a car was hit by a drone in western Rafah, Al Jazeera correspondent Hani Mahmoud said.
Mahmoud, speaking from Deir el-Balah, said the car was heading toward central Gaza along a coastal road. The Guardian has not been able to independently verify this report.
The United Nations Palestinian Refugee Agency (Unrwa) said more than 630,000 people had been evacuated from Rafah since the attacks began on May 6.
“They’re moving into areas where there’s no water, we have to truck it in, and people don’t have enough food to eat,” said Sam Rose, director of planning at Anruwa. he told Reuters by phone from Rafah on Friday. , where he said it was eerily quiet.
Humanitarian aid has begun arriving in Gaza along a U.S.-built pier, but U.S. aid chiefs say the new sea corridor cannot replace the land route, and food and fuel shipments to Gaza will be delayed. It warned that it was slowing to “dangerously low” levels.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Friday that a truck loaded with humanitarian aid, including food from the United Arab Emirates, shipped from Cyprus was unloaded on the Gaza coast and handed over to United Nations custody. admitted that it was
“My hope is that by the time we’re done here, some of it will actually be in the mouths of hungry people,” Kirby told reporters at a White House briefing.
However, the Associated Press quoted an unnamed U.N. official as saying that distribution of the shipment had not begun as of Friday afternoon.
Britain said the aid unloaded on Friday also included 8,400 kits providing temporary shelter made from plastic sheets.
Hamas issued a statement on Friday saying the U.S.-built pier off the coast of the Gaza Strip is no substitute for opening all land routes under Palestinian supervision, adding that it rejects any military presence on Palestinian land.
Trucks carrying much-needed aid to the Gaza Strip have begun entering the Strip for the first time, crossing a newly constructed U.S. pier.
Friday’s shipment was the first in an operation that U.S. military officials expect could scale up to 150 trucks per day, the Associated Press reported.
This comes seven months after the start of the Israel-Hamas war, as Israeli border crossing restrictions and heavy fighting have hampered the delivery of food and other supplies.
The war was sparked by Hamas attacks on Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 250 hostages.
At least 35,386 Palestinians have been killed and 79,366 injured as a result of Israeli retaliatory attacks on the Hamas-held Gaza Strip, the Gaza Health Ministry announced on Saturday.
About half of the approximately 250 people abducted on October 7 have since been released, most of them exchanged for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel during a week-long ceasefire in November. According to Israeli authorities, about 30 people have been confirmed dead.
On Saturday, a family forum issued a statement saying one of the hostages, Ron Benjamin, had died. The organization said in a statement that 128 hostages remained in custody.
The bodies of three hostages abducted by Hamas, including German-Israeli Shani Luk, have been recovered from Gaza by the Israeli military, it has been announced.
The other two hostages were identified as Amit Buskila, 28, and Itzhak Gellerenter, 56, and the three victims were killed by Hamas at the Nova Music Festival, military spokesman Admiral Daniel Hagari said. He said he was then taken to Gaza.
Footage of what appears to be the body of Luke, 22, in the back of a pickup truck on a Gaza street is one of the first to surface since October 7, when the scale of the attack became clear.
She was initially thought to be alive when she was kidnapped during a Hamas raid in Reims. But on October 30, skeletons were discovered that suggested her fatal injuries, and Luke’s sister Addy confirmed that Shani probably died during the attack.
AFP, Reuters and AP contributed to this report
