Israeli Attacks Intensify Across Gaza, Causing Heavy Casualties
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The Israeli regime’s forces have escalated their offensive across the Gaza Strip, resulting in significant casualties and widespread destruction, according to local reports.
Israeli forces continued their attacks across Gaza after a night of bombings that left dozens of Palestinians dead and injured.
Al Jazeera Arabic’s reporters on the ground have reported additional Israeli raids in the center of Rafah city in the south, and in the Sheikh Zayed and Zeitoun neighborhoods in the north, as well as near the Kamal Adwan hospital in the north.
Reporters also noted fierce clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters in the Jabalia refugee camp in the north.
The violence follows earlier Israeli attacks on the Nuseirat refugee camp and Gaza City, which killed at least 29 people.
In the north of Gaza, two roads run between the city of Jabalia and the Jabalia refugee camp. The smaller Assalia Street, named after the large family residing there, runs parallel to as-Sikka Street.
Late last week, an Israeli attack on Assalia Street killed 26 members of the Assalia family and destroyed six houses, according to witnesses. Images reviewed by Al Jazeera show the street reduced to a dirt track.
Ibrahim Assalia, 46, a media lecturer originally from Gaza now living in the UK, was on the phone with his brother as the attack unfolded. "Pray for me, they are heavily shelling the area," Assalia recalled his brother saying on May 11.
In Gaza City’s Daraj neighborhood, six people were killed and others wounded in the bombing of a house, while three people were killed and others wounded in the bombing of a school sheltering people.
The Wafa news agency reported that rescue crews recovered the remains of three people from the "Abu Hashem" building in the Jabalia al-Balad area in central Rafah, after Israeli forces bombed the structure on Saturday evening.
More than 1.4 million people were sheltering in Rafah before Israel launched its ground invasion, forcing nearly 800,000 people to flee so far.
The Israeli military is destroying "entire residential blocks" with civilians inside at the Jabalia refugee camp, according to a statement from a Palestinian group. Schools and shelters for the displaced are also being targeted, resulting in dozens of deaths, many of them women and children, during the past week's ground assault.
"The escalating crimes of the occupation will not succeed in breaking the will of our valiant resistance, or dissuading our proud people from their choice to stand firm on their land," the Palestinian resistance stated, urging the international community to stop Israel’s attacks.
At least 900,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced in the past week as Israel intensifies its deadly incursions into Gaza.
Since October 7, Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed at least 35,386 people and wounded 79,366.
