JERUSALEM: Gaza’s interior ministry on Thursday said that an Israeli airstrike on a residential building in the densely populated Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza has killed at least 45 people and wounded dozens more.
Eyad Bozum, the spokesperson of the interior ministry, told The Associated Press that a late afternoon airstrike hit the al-Shihab family house at the center of the Jabaliya camp.
The al-Shihab house was packed with dozens of relatives at the time of the airstrike. Some family members had fled heavy bombing from other parts of the strip and taken refuge there.
Bozum said the death toll was likely to rise from that airstrike, because civil defense workers were still pulling bodies from the rubble and counting the dead.
The Israel military pulverized the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip with airstrikes, prepared for a possible ground invasion and said Thursday its complete siege on the territory — which has left Palestinians desperate for food, fuel and medicine — would remain in place until Hamas militants freed some 150 hostages taken during a deadly weekend incursion.
A visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, along with shipments of US weapons, were a powerful green light to Israel to drive ahead with its retaliation in Gaza after Hamas’ grisly weekend attack, even as international aid groups warned of a worsening humanitarian crisis. Israel has halted deliveries of basic necessities and electricity to Gaza’s 2.3 million people and prevented entry of supplies from Egypt.
“Not a single electricity switch will be flipped on, not a single faucet will be turned on, and not a single fuel truck will enter until the Israeli hostages are returned home,” Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz said on social media.