Over 700 Palestinians killed in Gaza after Israeli air strikes

GAZA: More than 700 Palestinians were killed in overnight Israeli air strikes, Gaza’s health ministry said on Tuesday, the highest 24-hour death toll since Israel began a bombing campaign.

Israel said it had killed dozens of Palestinian fighters in the overnight strikes on the besieged enclave but said its war to destroy Hamas would take time.

Gaza’s health ministry said at least 5,800 Palestinians have been killed in the strikes, including 2,360 children. A total of 704 were killed in the previous 24 hours alone, it said.

A member of 'Palestine Red Crescent Society' reacts as Palestinians gather to search for casualties at the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip. — Reuters

Ministry spokesman Ashraf al Qidra said it was the biggest number of deaths in a 24-hour period in the two weeks of Israeli strikes.

After his daughter was killed in an air strike in southern Gaza, Abdallah Tabash refused to let her go, holding her body in his arms. Blood stained her face and hair as people begged him to hand her over so they could bury her.

“This is my girl, I want to see her as much as I can,” the shocked father said in the city of Khan Younis.

The bombardments were unleashed in response to the attack on southern Israel on October 7.

On Monday, two Israeli women were freed among the more than 200 hostages taken during the assault. They were the third and fourth hostages to be released.

Israeli tanks and troops are massed on the border between Israel and the enclave awaiting orders for an expected ground invasion - an operation that will be complicated by concerns over the hostages.

The Israeli military said it had hit more than 400 targets in Gaza overnight and killed dozens of fighters, including three deputy commanders.

A woman reacts next to the rubble of a building following Israeli strikes on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. — AFP

Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the military was “ready and determined” for the next stage in the war and was awaiting political instructions.

Wide areas of Gaza have been flattened by Israeli bombs with buildings reduced to piles of rubble and twisted metal, forcing more than one million residents to seek shelter elsewhere in the territory. Food, clean water and medicine and fuel are fast running out.

Residents said several people were killed and wounded when an Israeli missile hit a petrol station in Khan Younis, where people who fled the eastern side of the city were gathered to charge their devices. — Reuters