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LAST UPDATE | 23 Mar
GAZA’S CIVIL DEFENCE agency said on Sunday that Israeli air force jets struck a hospital in Khan Yunis, in the south of the Palestinian territory.
“The occupation’s [Israel's] aircraft targeted with an air strike the emergency department at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza Strip,” the agency said in a statement, without providing immediate details on casualties.
Earlier today, the health ministry in Gaza said that at least 50,021 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since war with Israel began in October 2023.
“The toll for the Israeli aggression has reached 50,021 martyrs and 113,274 wounded since October 7, 2023″, a ministry statement said, referring to the day Hamas launched the attack on Israel that triggered the war. The territory’s civil defence agency, citing its own records, also said the toll had topped 50,000 deaths.
The updated death toll comes as the Israeli military has urged residents of the southern Gaza city of Rafah to evacuate as forces launched an offensive against militants in the area.
In a statement on X, military spokesman Avichay Adraee said the army “launched an offensive to strike the terrorist organisations” in Rafah’s Tal al-Sultan district, calling on Palestinians there to leave the “dangerous combat zone”.
Israel resumed air strikes on Gaza on Tuesday before sending troops back into areas evacuated during the pause in fighting.
It came after weeks of disagreement with Hamas over extending the ceasefire that took effect on 19 January.
Israel says its military campaign is necessary to pressure Hamas into releasing more hostages and secure the freedom of about 60 captives, dead or alive.
Many hostage families have instead called for a renewed ceasefire, noting most captives who returned alive did so during truce periods.
Yesterday, Hamas accused the United States of distorting the truth by saying it had chosen war with Israel by refusing to release hostages.
“The claim that ‘Hamas chose war instead of releasing the hostages’ is a distortion of the facts,” Hamas said in a statement in response to the accusation from US National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes on Tuesday.
He had said: “Hamas could have released hostages to extend the ceasefire but instead chose refusal and war.”
The Palestinian militant group added that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “rejected these initiatives and deliberately sabotaged them to serve his political interests,” referring to criticism he has faced in Israel, including from families of hostages held in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Israel launched a new wave of strikes on Lebanon overnight in response to a rocket attack from across the border.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz ordered “a second wave of strikes against dozens of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon”, the defence ministry said, in the largest escalation since a 27 November ceasefire.
It said the strikes were “a response to rocket fire towards Israel and a continuation of the first series of strikes carried out this morning” against southern Lebanon.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported one girl among five people killed in an Israeli strike during the day on the southern town of Touline.
The agency later said three people were killed in an Israeli strike on the city of Tyre, targeted in the second wave of strikes on the south and east, with multiple injuries also reported.
Bilal Kachmar, spokesman for the Tyre Disaster Management Unit, told AFP two people were killed and two wounded when “an Israeli strike targeted an apartment in a residential building in the Al-Raml neighbourhood of Tyre”, a key coastal city targeted for the first time since the ceasefire.
A security source told AFP that a Hezbollah official was targeted in the Tyre strike, without confirming whether he had been killed.
Israel’s military said six rockets, three of which were intercepted, were fired from Lebanon into northern Israel Saturday, setting off air raid sirens.
Hezbollah denied any involvement in the rocket attack, and called Israel’s accusations “pretexts for its continued attacks on Lebanon”.
Hezbollah said it stands “with the Lebanese state in addressing this dangerous Zionist escalation on Lebanon”.
While Hezbollah has long held sway over parts of Lebanon bordering Israel, other Lebanese and Palestinian groups have also carried out cross-border attacks.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam warned that renewed military operations on the southern border risked “dragging the country into a new war”, his office said.
Foreign Minister Youssef Raggi called for “pressure on Israel to stop the aggression and escalation and contain the dangerous situation on the southern borders”.
Israeli defence chiefs say they hold the Lebanese government responsible for all hostile fire from its territory, regardless of who launches it.
“We cannot allow fire from Lebanon on Galilee communities,” Israeli Defence Minister Katz said of towns and villages in the north, many of which were evacuated after Hezbollah began firing at Israel in support of Hamas in October 2023.
“The Lebanese government is responsible for attacks from its territory.”
Hezbollah has long had strongholds in south and east Lebanon, as well as south Beirut, but the war with Israel dealt the group devastating blows, leaving it massively weakened.
Under the ceasefire, Hezbollah is supposed to pull its forces north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the Israeli border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.
Israel is supposed to withdraw its forces across the UN-demarcated Blue Line, the de facto border, but has missed two deadlines to do so and continues to hold five positions it deems “strategic”.
Israel has carried out repeated air strikes during the ceasefire, targeting what it said were Hezbollah military sites that violated the agreement.
The Lebanese army said it had dismantled three makeshift rocket batteries in an area north of the Litani on Saturday.
Need more information on what is happening in Israel and Palestine? Check out our FactCheck Knowledge Bank for essential reads and guides to navigating the news online.
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