Jerusalem– Israeli strikes across Gaza killed at least 67 Palestinians overnight and into Wednesday, including in areas where civilians have been told to seek refuge.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah says it received 44 bodies after multiple strikes in central Gaza. Associated Press reporters saw the bodies arriving in ambulances and private vehicles.
Also Wednesday, the aid group Doctors Without Borders said that two people were killed when a shelter housing staff in the Gaza Strip was struck during an Israeli operation in an area where Palestinians have been told to seek shelter.
“While details are still emerging, ambulance crews have now reached the site, where at least two family members of our colleagues have been killed and six people wounded. We are horrified by what has taken place,” the group said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The attack took place in Muwasi, a sandy, mostly undeveloped strip of land along the coast that has been transformed into a sprawling tent camp with little in the way of basic services.
The war began when Hamas-led militants rampaged into southern Israel on Oct 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostage. About a fourth of some 130 captives still being held are believed to be dead. Israel has laid waste to much of the Palestinian territory in response. Gaza’s Health Ministry estimates more than 29,000 Palestinians have been killed.
Here’s the latest:
RAPE AND SEXUAL ASSAULT TOOK PLACE DURING HAMAS ATTACK, ISRAELI ASSOCIATION SAYS
TEL AVIV, Israel The Association of Rape Crisis Centres in Israel says it found evidence of “systematic and intentional” rape and sexual abuse during the Hamas attack on Oct 7 that ignited the war in Gaza.
The report said that “in some cases, rape was conducted in front of an audience, such as partners, family, or friends, to increase the pain and humiliation for all present”. Orit Sulitzeanu, the executive director of the association, says that in many cases, the bodies of male and female victims, including their genitals, were severely mutilated.
The report, published on Wednesday, did not specify the number of cases it had documented or identify any victims, even anonymously. Sulitzeanu said such determinations were difficult because many of the victims were killed after being assaulted, and first responders were so overwhelmed by the scale of death and destruction that they did not document signs of sexual abuse.
The report’s authors said they based their research on confidential and public interviews with officials and first responders, as well as media reports. Sulitzeanu said they also relied on “confidential sources” but declined to say whether they had spoken to victims.
An Associated Press investigation also found that sexual assault was part of an atrocity-filled rampage by Hamas and other militants who killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took around 250 hostages on Oct 7. Hamas has rejected allegations that its gunmen committed sexual assault.
According to the Israeli report, which was submitted to the United Nations and UN investigators carrying out a similar investigation, the sexual and gender-based violence occurred in four main places the Nova music festival, communities near the Gaza border, Israeli military bases that were overrun by Hamas and places where hostages were held in Gaza.
Sulitzeanu says the purpose of the report was to document how the sexual violence was similar across multiple sites, indicating it was organized and directed by Hamas.
The association represents multiple rape crisis centres across Israel.
ISRAELI AIRSTRIKE KILLS A WOMAN AND HER DAUGHTER IN SOUTHERN LEBANON
BEIRUT Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency says an Israeli airstrike on a southern village has killed a woman and her daughter.
Wednesday’s airstrike on the village of Majdal Zoun came after a series of strikes overnight, including one on Safi Mountain in the Hezbollah stronghold of Apple Province and another near the southern town of Khiam.
NNA identified the woman killed as Khadija Salman, 40. Security officials speaking on condition of anonymity, in line with regulations, identified her 7-year-old daughter, who later succumbed to her wounds, as Amal al-Dur.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah has been striking at Israeli posts along the border since the Israel-Hamas war broke out following the Oct 7 attack by Palestinian militants on southern Israel.
More than 200 people, the vast majority of them Hezbollah fighters, have been killed in Lebanon since the latest round of violence broke out more than four months ago. The dead include more than 20 civilians. (AP)
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