By WAFAA SHURAFA and MELANIE LIDMAN
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli airstrikes pounded northern and southern Gaza on Wednesday, killing a minimum of 70 individuals, together with virtually two dozen youngsters, in line with native hospitals and well being officers, a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated there was “no manner” he would halt Israel’s offensive within the Palestinian territory earlier than Hamas is defeated.
A minimum of 50 individuals, together with 22 youngsters, had been killed in strikes round Jabaliya in northern Gaza alone, in line with hospitals and Gaza’s Well being Ministry.
The strikes got here after Hamas on Monday launched an Israeli-American hostage, a gesture that some thought might lay the groundwork for a ceasefire, and as U.S. President Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia throughout a multi-day journey to Gulf nations. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist group by the US, Canada and the European Union.
Israel’s army refused to touch upon the strikes. It warned Jabaliya residents to evacuate late Tuesday, citing combatant infrastructure within the space, together with rocket launchers.
In Jabaliya, rescue staff smashed by collapsed concrete slabs utilizing hand instruments, lit by the sunshine of cellphones, to take away youngsters’s our bodies.
Palestinians mourn youngsters from their households who had been killed in Israeli airstrikes in Jabalia, within the northern Gaza Strip, on Wednesday, Might 14, 2025. In line with native hospitals, the strikes killed 48 individuals, together with 22 youngsters. (AP Picture/Jehad Alshrafi)
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Palestinians mourn youngsters from their households who had been killed in Israeli airstrikes in Jabalia, within the northern Gaza Strip, on Wednesday, Might 14, 2025. In line with native hospitals, the strikes killed 48 individuals, together with 22 youngsters. (AP Picture/Jehad Alshrafi)
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Israel threatens to escalate operations in Gaza
In feedback launched by Netanyahu’s workplace Tuesday, the prime minister stated Israeli forces had been days away from a promised escalation of drive and would enter Gaza “with nice energy to finish the mission … It means destroying Hamas.”
There had been widespread hope that Trump’s go to to the Center East might usher in a ceasefire deal or renewal of humanitarian help to Gaza. An Israeli blockade of the territory is now in its third month.
The battle started when Hamas-led terrorists killed 1,200 individuals in a 2023 intrusion into southern Israel. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 52,928 Palestinians, lots of them girls and youngsters, in line with Gaza’s Well being Ministry, which doesn’t say what number of had been combatants. Nearly 3,000 have been killed since Israel broke a ceasefire on March 18, the ministry stated.
Israel’s offensive has obliterated huge swathes of Gaza’s city panorama and displaced 90% of the inhabitants, usually a number of occasions.
Israeli media reported that one goal in a strike on a hospital in Khan Younis on Tuesday was Mohammed Sinwar, youthful brother of the late Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by Israeli forces final October. The army wouldn’t remark past saying it had focused a Hamas “command and management heart” which it stated was situated beneath the European Hospital.
Mohammed Sinwar is believed to be Hamas’ high army chief in Gaza. Israel has tried to assassinate him a number of occasions over the previous a long time.
A senior well being official in Gaza stated Wednesday that ambulances had been now not capable of attain the hospital resulting from injury from the strike, which had additionally compelled the power to droop surgical operations.
Dr. Marwan al-Hams, director normal of Subject Hospitals at Gaza’s Well being Ministry, stated the strike had severely broken the hospital’s water and sewage techniques, in addition to its courtyard. He added that the Israeli army hit a bulldozer introduced in by hospital authorities to restore the world to permit ambulances attain the constructing.
“Till these damages are mounted, we must shut down most departments of the hospital,” he stated, including that he had no details about Israel’s claimed goal of the strike.
France condemns Israeli blockade of help
Worldwide meals safety consultants warned earlier this week that Gaza will probably fall into famine if Israel doesn’t raise its blockade and cease its army marketing campaign.
Almost half 1,000,000 Palestinians are dealing with doable hunger whereas 1 million others can barely get sufficient meals, in line with findings by the Built-in Meals Safety Part Classification, a number one worldwide authority on the severity of starvation crises.
French President Emmanuel Macron strongly denounced Netanyahu’s resolution to dam help as “a shame” that has triggered a significant humanitarian disaster.
“I say it forcefully, what Benjamin Netanyahu’s authorities is doing at the moment is unacceptable,” Macron stated Tuesday night on TF1 nationwide tv. “There’s no medication. We are able to’t get the wounded out. Docs can’t get in.”
Macron, who visited injured Palestinians in Egypt final month, known as for the reopening of the Gaza border to humanitarian convoys. “Then, sure, we should struggle to demilitarize Hamas, free the hostages and construct a political resolution,” he stated.
Netanyahu retorted that Macron was “echoing the false propaganda” of an extremist group.
Gaza’s inhabitants of round 2.3 million individuals depends virtually solely on exterior help to outlive. Israel’s 19-month-old army marketing campaign has wiped away most capability to supply meals within the territory. Markets are empty of most objects, and costs for what stays have skyrocketed.
Blockades drive charity kitchens to shut
The United Nations says the variety of meals that charity kitchens are offering in Gaza has plunged to round 260,000 beneath Israel’s blockade, down from greater than 1 million a day in late April.
Charity kitchens are the final lifeline for many of Gaza’s inhabitants, however they’re quickly shutting down as a result of provides are operating out. Within the first two weeks of Might, a minimum of 112 kitchens – greater than 60% of the entire – closed, the U.N. humanitarian workplace stated Wednesday. Solely 68 kitchens nonetheless function.
The World Well being Group stated it has solely sufficient shares to deal with 500 youngsters with acute malnutrition, a fraction of the necessity. 1000’s of youngsters have been recognized with malnutrition in latest weeks.
Israel says the blockade is aimed toward pressuring Hamas to launch remaining hostages and disarm. Israeli officers have asserted there’s sufficient meals within the territory after a surge in help entered through the latest two-month ceasefire.
Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Related Press author Fatma Khaled and Lee Keath contributed from Cairo and Sylvie Corbet contributed from Paris.
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