Dozens of Palestinians who took refuge in the Gaza post office were killed by a single strike by Israel
About a dozen of the 33 Palestinians killed in an Israeli air strike wept and recited verses from Islam’s holy book, the Koran, at a Gaza hospital on Friday before they buried some of them at the post office where they had taken shelter.
Doctors said that families displaced by the 14-month-long conflict took refuge in the post office in the Nuseyrat camp. Several nearby houses were also damaged in the attack that took place on Thursday night.
Israel said it targeted a senior member of Islamic Jihad when it struck the structure.
Some of the bodies collected at Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat were wrapped in white shrouds, while others were wrapped in blankets from home. Family members accompanied them when they were taken to the graves.
“They killed hope and optimism,” said Suheil Mattar, whose grandchildren and daughters-in-law were killed.
“Every time things happen and we say there will be a ceasefire and we will rest… After that they change their minds, they change their minds, we don’t know why,” Mattar said.
Dozens of people were killed and many more injured in an Israeli strike on Nusairat on Thursday. Palestinians were searching for others trapped in the rubble at the site of the airstrike in the morning.
Months of cease-fire efforts by Arab mediators Egypt and Qatar, backed by the United States, have failed to reach an agreement between the two warring parties.
Israel said it targeted the Islamic Jihad leader in attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers. He accused the armed group of exploiting civilian infrastructure and using the population as human shields for its activities. The name of the Islamic Jihad member has not been released.
Nuseirat is one of eight historic camps for Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, established after the 1948 war surrounding the establishment of Israel. Today, it is part of a dense urban area filled with settlers from all over the enclave.
“Horrible Visions”
“We have seen absolutely horrific footage from the scene,” Louise Wateridge, the UN’s senior emergency officer for the Palestinian Authority, told a UN press briefing in Geneva via video link from Nuseyrat on Friday.
“There are parents looking for their children, children looking for their parents in the dust and blood, the dead and people still buried under the rubble,” he said.
Separate Israeli airstrikes across the enclave killed at least 12 people, including three in a tent housing a displaced family in Khan Younis and a local journalist in Gaza City, Palestinian health officials said on Friday.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in Tel Aviv on Thursday that he believes a deal on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release could be close because Israel has said it is ready and there are signs of action by Hamas.
The war in the Palestinian enclave began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants stormed Israeli territory, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages in Hamas-run Gaza, according to Israel. About 100 hostages remain in Gaza.
Since then, the Israeli army has driven all of Gaza’s 2.3 million people from their homes, inflicting deadly starvation and disease and killing an estimated 44,900 people, according to Palestinian health authorities.
WATCH | The rescuers pulled out the young girl from under the rubble of the post office:
Doctors in Gaza said on Thursday that at least 30 people were killed and dozens injured after Israel struck a post office where people were sheltering in Nuseirat. The Israeli military, which said it had targeted the Islamic Jihad leader, said it was reviewing reports of casualties.
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