3 Gaza civil defense staffers injured in Israeli attack in north

By Anadolu staff

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) - Three civil defense workers were injured in an Israeli drone strike in the northern Gaza Strip, the group said Wednesday.

"In a serious incident aimed at emptying northern Gaza of humanitarian services, our crews in the northern governorate were subjected to a direct Israeli strike that resulted in the injury of three members,” it said in a statement.

It noted that the strike was after the army, through quadcopter drones, warned "our crews to abandon all Civil Defense vehicles and anything related to their work, and to head towards the Sheikh Zayed area.”

The Israeli army besieged and detained displaced Gazans present in the Sheikh Zayed area, the group noted.

The civil defense urged humanitarian organizations and the International Committee of the Red Cross to employ “immediate intervention before it's too late to save the crews who have not abandoned their work in providing services to our people in the governorate.”

The Israeli army has intensified a massive assault in northern Gaza amid a suffocating siege that has left tens of thousands of people without food and water.

The onslaught, which began Oct. 5, is the latest episode in Israel’s brutal offensive that has killed nearly 42,800 victims, mostly women and children, and injured more than 100,400 since last October following an attack by the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas.

The Israeli onslaught has displaced almost the territory’s entire population amid an ongoing blockade that has led to severe shortages of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its actions in Gaza.

*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala