15 Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrikes on 2 refugee camps in central Gaza

By Fayez Abdulsalam

ISTANBUL (AA) - At least 15 Palestinians were killed and dozens injured in Israeli airstrikes on the Al-Bureij and Al-Maghazi refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip, the Gaza Health Ministry said Tuesday.

“The Israeli occupation has committed new massacres in the camps of Al-Bureij and Al-Maghazi, where the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital received 15 martyrs and dozens of injuries during the past hour,” a ministry spokesman said in a statement at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah.

The facility “is the only hospital providing health services to more than one million people currently, and its clinical capacity cannot bear to receive more martyrs and injuries in light of this serious aggression against civilians, children, and women," it said.

The statement confirmed that "the numbers of wounded and patients in the hospital's departments exceed the natural clinical capacity by more than three times.

The ministry urged "the international community and all international and UN organizations of all free countries in the world to immediately and urgently deploy field hospitals and medical teams to save the health situation in the Gaza Strip and to control the situations of dozens of thousands of wounded and injured people who are threatened by the risk of death.”

Israel has continued its brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7 Hamas attack despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.

More than 36,500 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, the vast majority being women and children, and nearly 83,000 others injured, according to local health authorities.

Nearly eight months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which in its latest ruling has ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its operation in the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala