- ARAB NEWS
- 11 Jul 2025
Since 1975
GAZA CITY: Gaza’s civil defense agency on Thursday said at least 52 people, including eight children, were killed by Israeli forces in the Palestinian territory battered by more than 21 months of war.
The latest deadly strikes and gunfire came just hours after Hamas, which runs Gaza, announced it was willing to release 10 hostages as part of indirect ceasefire talks with Israel.
Israel has recently expanded its military operations in the Gaza Strip, where the war has created dire humanitarian conditions for the population of more than two million people.
Civil defense official Mohammad Al-Mughair told AFP that 17 people were killed in a strike in front of a medical point in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza.
The Israeli military told AFP that it had struck a Hamas militant in Deir Al-Balah who had infiltrated Israel during the group’s October 7, 2023 attack.
It said it “regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to minimize harm as much as possible,” adding the incident was under review.
Mughair said eight children and two women were killed in the strike.
Yousef Al-Aydi, 30, said he was among dozens of people, mostly women and children, waiting for nutritional supplements in front of the medical point.
“Suddenly, we heard the sound of a drone approaching, and then the explosion happened,” he told AFP by phone.
“The ground shook beneath our feet, and everything around us turned into blood and deafening screams.”
“What was our fault? What was the fault of the children?” asked Mohammed Abu Ouda, 35, who had also been waiting for supplies.
“I saw a mother hugging her child on the ground, both motionless — they were killed instantly.”
AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details due to media restrictions in Gaza.
Four people were killed and several injured in a pre-dawn air strike on a family home in Al-Bureij camp in central Gaza, Mughair added.
AFP footage from Al-Bureij showed a family including three young children sitting among rubble outside their tattered tent after an air strike hit a house next door.
Mughair reported 27 more people killed in bombardments across the territory, including 15 people in five separate strikes in the area of Gaza City.
One person was killed southwest of the southern city of Khan Yunis by “Israeli military fire,” Mughair said.
Three more, including a woman, were killed by Israeli gunfire on civilians near an aid center in the northwest of nearby Rafah, he added.
More than 600 people have been killed around aid distributions and convoys in Gaza since late May, when Israel began allowing in a trickle of supplies, the United Nations said in early July.
The war began after Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, leading to the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians.
Israel’s retaliatory strikes have killed at least 57,680 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
The United Nations deems the figures reliable.
REUTERS
