Israeli assaults kill 50 extra Palestinians as troops storm northern Gaza hospital | EUROtoday

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At least 50 Palestinians had been killed in an Israeli airstrike close to the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza on Thursday evening.

The Israeli navy subsequently stormed the hospital, Al Jazeera reported. The troopers used loudspeakers to order sufferers and employees to go away inside quarter-hour and minimize off communication to the power earlier than storming it, the outlet stated.

The hospital, one of many final functioning healthcare services in northern Gaza, has been underneath a sustained Israeli assault for weeks.

“There are nearly 50 martyrs, including three of our medical staff, under the rubble of a building opposite Kamal Adwan Hospital in the Beit Lahia Project area after it was bombed by Israeli warplanes,” the hospital director, Hussam Abu Safia, was quoted as saying by the Turkish information company Anadolu.

The newest assaults on Gaza got here as a wave of Israeli airstrikes hit Yemen’s major airport on Thursday simply because the World Health Organization’s director common was about to board a flight there.

A crew member of a UN aircraft was injured when Israeli jets bombed the Sanaa airport earlier on Thursday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated on X.

The remainder of the group left the airport and had been “safe and sound” in Sanaa, UN affiliate spokesperson Stephanie Tremblay stated.

An evaluation of the injury to the airport can be made on Friday to determine if the UN delegation might depart Yemen, she added.

Palestinians gather at a UN school sheltering displaced people following an Israeli strike in Gaza

Palestinians collect at a UN college sheltering displaced individuals following an Israeli strike in Gaza (Reuters)

Even as ceaseless Israeli assaults worsen the humanitarian disaster in Gaza, an organisation monitoring meals crises globally withdrew its warning of imminent famine within the northern a part of the besieged Palestinian territory underneath Israel’s “near-total blockade” after being pressured by US officers, the Associated Press reported.

The uncommon public problem from the Joe Biden administration to the work of the US-funded Famine Early Warning System, or Fews, which is supposed to replicate data-driven evaluation of unbiased specialists, drew accusations from support and human rights figures of doable political interference by Washington.

A discovering of famine can be a rebuke of US ally Israel, which insists its battle on Gaza is aimed in opposition to the Hamas militant group and never in opposition to its civilian inhabitants.

In its withdrawn report, Fews stated until Israel modified its coverage, the variety of individuals dying of hunger and associated illnesses in north Gaza might attain between two and 15 per day someday between January and March.

The internationally acknowledged mortality threshold for famine is 2 or extra deaths a day per 10,000 individuals.

US ambassador to Israel Jacob Lew this week referred to as the warning by the globally recognised group inaccurate and “irresponsible”.

Mr Lew and the US Agency for International Development, which funds Fews, claimed the findings failed to properly account for rapidly changing circumstances in north Gaza.

Mourners react during the funeral of Palestinian journalists killed in an overnight Israeli airstrike in Al Nuseirat refugee camp

Mourners react during the funeral of Palestinian journalists killed in an overnight Israeli airstrike in Al Nuseirat refugee camp (EPA)

The US embassy in Israel and the State Department declined to comment.

Fews confirmed on Thursday it had retracted the famine warning but expected to rerelease the report in January with updated data and analysis. The group declined further comment.

Usaid confirmed it had asked Fews to withdraw its report warning of imminent famine issued on Monday.

The dispute points in part to the difficulty of assessing the extent of starvation in largely isolated northern Gaza, where thousands of people have fled an intensified Israeli military crackdown that aid groups say has allowed delivery of only a dozen trucks of food and water since roughly October.

Rescuers and civilians stand at the site of an Israeli strike in a residential area in the Tuffah neighbourhood east of Gaza City on 26 December 2024

Rescuers and civilians stand at the site of an Israeli strike in a residential area in the Tuffah neighbourhood east of Gaza City on 26 December 2024 (AFP via Getty)

In publicly challenging the findings of Fews, the US envoy “leveraged his political energy to undermine the work of this professional company”, Scott Paul, a senior manager at the humanitarian nonprofit Oxfam America, said.

Mr Paul stressed that he wasn’t weighing in on the accuracy of the data or methodology of the report.

“The complete level of making Fews is to have a gaggle of specialists make assessments about imminent famine which can be untainted by political concerns,” Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, said.

“It positive seems like Usaid is permitting political concerns – the Biden administration’s fear about funding Israel’s hunger technique – to intrude.”

The US, Israel’s major backer, supplied a file quantity of navy assist within the first 12 months of the battle. At the identical time, the Biden administration repeatedly urged Israel to permit extra entry to help deliveries in Gaza general and warned that failing to take action might set off US restrictions on navy assist. The administration just lately stated Israel was making enhancements and declined to hold out its menace of restrictions.

Military assist for Israel’s battle on Gaza is politically charged within the US, with Republicans and a few Democrats staunchly against limiting assist over the struggling of Palestinian civilians trapped within the battle. The Biden administration’s reluctance to press Israel for improved remedy of Palestinian civilians undercut assist for Democrats in final month’s elections.

Israel’s battle on Gaza has to date killed over 45,000 Palestinians, greater than half of them girls and youngsters, based on the native well being ministry. The air and floor assault has prompted widespread destruction and displaced round 90 per cent of the besieged territory’s 2.3 million individuals, usually a number of instances.

The assault started in October final 12 months after a Hamas assault killed 1,200 Israeli civilians and troopers and noticed 250 taken hostage.

Additional reporting by businesses.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-gaza-hospital-strike-b2670437.html