By Amer Solyman
ISTANBUL (AA) – At least 82 civil defense personnel were killed and over 720 others injured in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip since last Oct. 7, the agency said on Sunday.
In a statement, the Civil Defense Agency said its facilities and vehicles had been routinely targeted by the Israeli army during its offensive on the Palestinian enclave.
It accused Israel of “deliberately hindering humanitarian efforts aimed at saving lives and protecting civilians.”
According to the agency, civil defense teams have managed to recover the bodies of 35,000 people, while around 10,000 people remain trapped under the rubble.
It said fuel shortages and Israeli attacks hinder civil defense teams from responding to thousands of emergency calls.
“Around 2,210 bodies have disappeared from cemeteries across the Gaza Strip,” the agency said, without elaborating.
Israel’s dropping of around 85,000 tons of explosives on the Gaza Strip has destroyed more than 80% of urban infrastructure and 90% of the general infrastructure.
“Around 17% of these ordnances remain unexploded,” it warned.
Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7 attack last year by the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas.
The Israeli onslaught has since killed nearly 40,100 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 92,600, according to local health authorities.
More than 10 months into the Israeli onslaught, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.
Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.
*Writing by Ikram Kouachi