Israeli strikes across Gaza kill at least 50, Palestinian officials say

BBC:

At least 50 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, health officials and first responders say.

Nine people died in the morning when a missile hit a police station in the market area of Jabalia town, in northern Gaza, a local hospital said.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it struck a “command-and-control centre” for Hamas and its ally Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Jabalia that was being used to plan attacks.

Later, the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency said 12 more people were killed when a family home in Jabalia’s Ard Halawa area was bombed, and that others were believed to be missing under the rubble.

The IDF said it was looking at the reports.

Another 29 people were reportedly killed elsewhere in the territory.

They included a family of six – a couple and their four children – whose home in the northern Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood of Gaza City was struck overnight, according to the Civil Defence.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) later identified the man who was killed as Ali al-Sarafiti, who it said was a member of the armed group and a former prisoner who was jailed for 13 years in Israel after being convicted over an attempted suicide attack.

Palestinian media also said three displaced people were killed when their family tent was hit near Nuseirat, in central Gaza, and that two children died in a strike on another tent in the southern Khan Younis area.

“One by one we are getting martyred, dying in pieces,” Rania al-Jumla, who lost her sister in a strike in Khan Younis, told AFP news agency.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said on Thursday morning that at least 1,978 people had been killed since Israel resumed its offensive in Gaza on 18 March following the collapse of a two-month ceasefire.

Israel says it is putting military pressure on Hamas to release the 59 hostages it is still holding, 24 of whom are believed to be alive.

It has also blocked all deliveries of humanitarian aid and other supplies to Gaza for seven weeks, which the UN says is “further depriving people of the means for survival and undermining every aspect of civilian life”.

The UN has urged Israel to end the blockade immediately, saying it has obligations under international law as the occupying power to ensure food and medical supplies for the population, as well as ensuring essential services.

Israel has insisted it is acting in accordance with international law, and that there is no shortage of aid in Gaza because 25,000 lorries entered during the recent ceasefire.