ISRAELI forces killed at least 64 Palestinians in Gaza on Wednesday, most of them in the north, where a six-day siege has forced the United Nations to shut down schools-turned-shelters, as well as hospitals.
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces shot and killed at least four Palestinians in what the governor of Nablus called “a cowardly and deliberate assassination”.
AlJazeera reports one strike just after midnight in Haret Hreik, which is in the southern suburbs of Beirut. The Israeli army did issue a warning just beforehand, saying that they would target a building that was close to Hezbollah facilities.
Now, people have very little trust in these warnings.
People say that when the Israeli army says they’re going to target a place, they’ll often target another building or they’ll bomb other areas. And some of these explosions are absolutely massive.
We do know that these southern suburbs, up until two weeks ago, were densely populated. Some 700,000 people live there, and now the majority of them have come here to central Beirut or found shelter wherever they can.
But because these shelters are so overcrowded, many are sleeping on the streets, in cars, outside the mosques and at the beaches.
Now, the NGO Save the Children put out a statement to say children’s education is also in peril. This is affecting 1.5 million children as half of the schools have been shut down across the country because they’re now turning into shelters.
There are also issues with healthcare. In the south, five paramedics were killed in an Israeli air strike. And healthcare practitioners there say they feel they’re being targeted and that medical facilities are being targeted.
Israel, of course, denies this, but it’s important to note that more than 100 paramedics have been killed in the past year, with the majority killed in the past two weeks alone.
Israel’s military also continues to pound Lebanon, killing at least five people in the southern town of Wardaniyeh, and another five paramedics in the Tyre district.
In Gaza, at least 42,010 people have been killed and 97,720 wounded in Israeli attacks since October 2023. In Israel, at least 1,139 people were killed in the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, and more than 200 people were taken captive.
