Israeli airstrikes crush apartments in Gaza refugee camp, as ground troops battle Hamas
Khan Younis (AP): A barrage of Israeli airstrikes leveled apartment buildings in a refugee camp near Gaza City on Tuesday, and footage showed rescuers pulling men, women and children out of the rubble. Israel said the strike destroyed a Hamas command center set up in civilian houses and a network of tunnels underneath.
The toll from the strikes in the Jabaliya camp was not immediately known. The Israeli military said a large number of militants were killed, including the commander overseeing Hamas operations in northern Gaza.
The director of the nearby hospital where casualties were taken, Dr. Atef Al-Kahlot, said hundreds were wounded or killed, but he did not provide exact figures. Neither side's account could be independently confirmed.
The strike underlined the anticipated surge in casualties on both sides as Israeli troops battling Hamas advance deeper into the northern Gaza Strip toward dense, residential neighborhoods. Israel has vowed to crush Hamas' ability to govern Gaza or threaten Israel following its Oct. 7 attack.
Israel said two of its soldiers were killed in fighting in northern Gaza, the first military deaths it reported since the ground offensive into the tiny Mediterranean territory accelerated late last week.
Several hundred thousand Palestinians remain in northern Gaza in the path of the ground assault. They have crowded into homes or are packed by the thousands into hospitals that are already overwhelmed with patients and running low on supplies.
In the Jabaliya refugee camp a densely built-up area of small streets on Gaza City's outskirts footage of the scene from Al-Jazeera TV showed at least four large craters where buildings once stood amid rubble surrounded by partially collapsed structures.
Dozens of rescue workers and bystanders dug through the wreckage, searching for survivors beneath the pancaked buildings. Young men carried the limp forms of two children from the upper floors of a damaged apartment block's crumbling frame while helping down another child and woman. It was unclear whether the children were alive or dead.
The Israeli military said it carried out a wide-scale strike in Jabaliya on Hamas infrastructure "that had taken over civilian buildings."
Brig. Gen. Daniel Hagari said an underground Hamas installation beneath a targeted building collapsed, toppling other nearby buildings. He said the commander killed in the strike, Ibrahim Biari, played a role in the October 7 attack on Israel.
Also on Tuesday, the Israeli military said ground troops took control of a Hamas military stronghold in west Jabaliya, killing 50.
Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem denied the military's claim, saying it was trying to justify "its heinous crime" against civilians.
Hagari repeated calls for civilians to evacuate northern Gaza to the south. The military says it targets Hamas fighters and infrastructure. The military has also repeatedly emphasized it will strike Hamas wherever it finds it.
Some 800,000 Palestinians have reportedly fled to the south, but many have not, in part because they say nowhere is safe as Israeli airstrikes in the south have continued to cause civilian deaths. The window to flee may be closing, as Israeli forces reached Gaza's main north-south highway this week.
More than 8,500 Palestinians have been killed in the war, mostly women and minors, the Gaza Health Ministry said Tuesday, without providing a breakdown between civilians and fighters. The figure is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
Over 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during Hamas' initial attack, also an unprecedented figure. Hamas also abducted around 240 people during their incursion and have continued firing rockets into Israel.
A day after Israel's first successful rescue of a captive held by Hamas, the spokesman of the group's armed wing said they plan to release some non-Israeli hostages in the coming days. Hamas has previously released four hostages, and has said it would let the others go in return for thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, which has dismissed the offer.
More than half of Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians have fled their homes, with hundreds of thousands sheltering in packed UN-run schools-turned-shelters or in hospitals alongside thousands of wounded patients.
The war has also threatened to ignite fighting on other fronts. Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah group have traded fire daily along the border, and Israel and the US have struck targets in Syria linked to Iran, which supports Hamas, Hezbollah and other armed groups in the region.
The military said it shot down what appeared to be a drone near the southernmost city of Eilat and intercepted a missile over the Red Sea on Tuesday, neither of which entered Israeli airspace.
Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen later claimed they fired ballistic missiles and drones at Israel, saying it was their third such operation and threatening more. Earlier this month, a US Navy destroyer in the Red Sea intercepted missiles and drones launched toward Israel by the Houthis, who control much of northern Yemen.
In the occupied West Bank, where Israeli-Palestinian violence has also surged, the army demolished the family home of Saleh al-Arouri, a senior Hamas official exiled over a decade ago. An official in the village of Aroura said the home had been vacant for 15 years.
Israeli forces reportedly have advanced north and east of Gaza City. South of the city, Israeli troops were also trying to cut off the territory's main highway and the parallel road along the Mediterranean coast, according to Dawood Shehab, a spokesperson of a small group allied with Hamas.
Zaki Abdel-Hay, a Palestinian living a few minutes' walk from the road south of Gaza City, said people are afraid to use it. "People are very scared. The Israeli tanks are still close," he said over the phone, adding that "constant artillery fire" could be heard near the road.
The Israeli military said it struck some 300 militant targets over the past day, including compounds inside tunnels, and that troops had engaged in several battles with militants armed with antitank missiles and machine guns.
Gaza's humanitarian crisis continued to worsen.
The World Health Organization said two hospitals were damaged and an ambulance destroyed in Gaza over the last two days. It said all 13 hospitals operating in the north have received Israeli evacuation orders in recent days. Medics have refused such orders, saying it would be a death sentence for patients on life support.
Gaza City's Shifa Hospital, the largest in the territory, is on the verge of running out fuel, the Health Ministry said.
There has been no central electricity in Gaza for weeks, and Israel has barred the entry of fuel needed to power generators for hospitals and homes, saying it wants to prevent it from falling into Hamas' hands.
It has allowed a limited amount of food, water, medicine and other supplies to enter from Egypt, though far less than what is needed, relief groups say. A convoy of 59 aid trucks entered through the Rafah Crossing with Egypt on Tuesday the largest yet bringing the total that have entered since October 22 to 216, according to Wael Abu Omar, Hamas' spokesperson for the crossing.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, says 64 of its staff have been killed since the start of the war, including a man killed alongside his wife and eight children in a strike late Monday.
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Holiday turns to heartbreak: 7 years after husband's death, Thane woman loses 3 kids in road crash
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Thane (PTI): "Mom, we will be back in two or three days," were the final words three siblings uttered to their mother before leaving their residence in Diva town of Thane district for a short holiday at a relative's place.
Hours later, those words returned to haunt a devastated mother as the news of their deaths in a horrific road accident on Monday morning shattered her world forever.
The siblings, Sneha Mohape (22), Manasi (20), and their brother Prathamesh (17), were among the 11 people who were killed in a head-on collision between a van packed with passengers and a cement mixer truck on a newly constructed bridge over the Ulhas River near Raite village under Kalyan taluka.
The tragedy has wiped out the entire support system of Anjana Mohape, a single mother who had been raising her children with grit and determination since her husband's death seven years ago.
Working as a domestic help, Anjana had ensured her children pursued their education, hoping they would soon stand on their own feet and lift the family out of financial hardship.
"She lived for them. After losing her husband, these three were her only reason to keep going," said Nathu Mohape, a family member.
"They were bright children with dreams of helping their mother. Now, everything is gone in an instant," said the distraught family member.
The siblings were headed to their uncle's house in Panhe village under Murbad taluka of the district to spend their college holiday.
The accident was so severe that the van was reduced to a heap of metal, leaving no room for survival for the Mohape trio.
The last rites of the three siblings will be performed in their native village, family sources said.
While local residents rushed to the spot to initiate a rescue operation, the impact had already claimed the lives of nearly a dozen passengers.
The crash has sparked fresh outrage among locals regarding heavy vehicles on the Kalyan-Ahilyanagar National Highway.
Residents alleged that lorries, mixer and dumper trucks engaged in construction work frequently violate speed limits and safety norms on the highway.
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