Many casualties as Israel escalates attacks across Gaza

The Israeli military is conducting intense assaults across the Gaza Strip by air, land and sea, causing many casualties and spreading fear among its war-weary displaced population.

Dozens of air raids hit the besieged territory on Saturday, particularly in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, homes west of the city of Rafah in the south and multiple areas in Gaza City to the north.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza said “large numbers” of killed and wounded were arriving at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, the majority of whom are children and women.

“Dozens of injured people are lying on the ground, and medical teams are trying to save them with the basic medical capabilities they have available,” it said, adding that it is short on medicine and food, and that its main generator has stopped functioning due to a lack of fuel.

Communications were affected amid the intense bombardment, but reporting from inside the “overwhelmed” hospital via a telephone call, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said the situation is tense, with terrified people on the street not knowing where to turn.

“There are explosions happening every minute. Ambulances are transferring the wounded to the hospital where we are trapped. It’s chaos inside the hospital. There are children among the wounded,” she said.

Mohammed el-Moughir, a doctor and director of supply and equipment at the Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza, confirmed to Al Jazeera that dozens of killed or injured Palestinians were brought into the hospital in Deir el-Balah.

In a short statement, the Israeli military said its forces were “targeting terrorist infrastructure in the area of Nuseirat”. It later announced its forces rescued four captives during the operation in Nuseirat. The four, who were taken into Gaza after the Hamas-led attack in southern Israel on October 7, were in “good medical condition”, the military said.

The Gaza Government Media Office said in a statement that the Israeli army had launched “an unprecedented brutal attack” on the Nuseirat refugee camp, “leaving dozens of martyrs and wounded in the streets” and continuing “its aggression against all areas of the Central Governorate”.

Also in central Gaza, at least six Palestinians from one family were killed by Israeli forces after they shelled their home in the Bureij refugee camp in the morning.

Dozens of air raids targeted the southern areas of Gaza City, with witnesses reporting that entire residential blocks were wiped out, while gunships bombarded the area near its fishing port.

The Israeli military is only intensifying its deadly campaign in Gaza after an attack on Thursday killed about 40 people sheltering at a United Nations-run school in the Nuseirat refugee camp, where some 6,000 displaced Palestinians were sheltering.

It claimed it killed 17 “terrorists” in that attack, but the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said in a condemning statement that the “school turned shelter” was targeted without any warning and those responsible must be held to account.

Hamas accused the Israeli military of providing “false information” about the 17, saying at least several of those announced killed are still alive.

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