Palestinian medical officials said Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip overnight into Sunday killed at least 22 people, including five children.
advertiseAn attack on a school housing displaced people in Gaza City killed at least eight people, including three children, according to Gaza’s health ministry. The Civil Defense Forces, which is affiliated with the Hamas government, said earlier that four children were among the victims.
The Israeli military said it carried out precision strikes against Hamas militants hiding there.
An attack on a house in the central city of Deir al-Balah on Saturday night killed at least eight people, including three women and two children, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which received the bodies. Six more people died in Sunday’s attack, according to local hospitals.
The military had no immediate comment on the attacks.
After more than 14 months of war with Hamas, Israel continues to carry out daily attacks on Gaza. The attacks are said to have only targeted militants, whom they accuse of hiding among civilians, but bombings often kill women and children.
Israel and Hamas have recently appeared closer to a ceasefire agreement that would include the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, but a number of obstacles remain and long-standing indirect talks have repeatedly stalled.
Israel allows Italian cardinal to enter Gaza
Meanwhile, Israeli authorities allowed Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, leader of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land, to enter Gaza to celebrate pre-Christmas mass with members of the area’s small Christian community.
Dozens of believers gathered at the Holy Family Church in Gaza City, where Pisabala and other clergy celebrated Mass. .
“At Christmas, we celebrate light, but we wonder where the light is. This is one of the places where there is light,” Pisabala said.
The buzz of Israeli drones circling overhead has become ubiquitous across Gaza during the war and can be heard throughout Mass.
The Latin Patriarch made a rare visit to Gaza a day after Pope Francis again criticized Israel’s actions in Gaza. Francis said on Saturday that his envoy was unable to enter the territory because of Israeli bombing.
“Yesterday, children were bombed. This is cruelty, this is not war,” Francis said during his annual Christmas greeting at the Vatican.
The pope recently called for an investigation to determine whether Israel’s actions in Gaza amounted to genocide, a conclusion later reached by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. The International Court of Justice is investigating South Africa’s genocide accusations against Israel.
Israel, which was founded as a Jewish refuge after the Nazi Holocaust, vehemently denies such accusations. It says it has made great efforts to avoid civilian casualties and only engages Hamas, which it accuses of using genocidal violence in the attacks that sparked the war.
On October 7, 2023, militants led by Hamas launched a surprise attack in southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping about 250 people. At least a third were dead.
advertiseSubsequent Israeli bombings and ground incursions have killed more than 45,000 people in Gaza, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its statistics.
The offensive caused massive destruction and displaced approximately 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million population, often multiple times. As the cold, wet winter approaches, hundreds of thousands of people crowd into squalid tent camps along the coast.
Israel has been conducting a large-scale operation in northern Gaza since early October, fighting Hamas in the most remote and damaged areas of the region. Tens of thousands of people have fled as the military ordered sweeping evacuations, allowing almost no access for humanitarian aid.
COGAT, the Israeli military agency that oversees civilian affairs in Gaza, said it had assisted in the evacuation of more than 100 patients, caregivers and other personnel from Kamal Adwan and Al-Awda hospitals in the far north, which had been struggling to function. COGAT said it also assisted in the delivery of 5,000 liters of fuel and food packages to hospitals.
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