UPDATES DEATH TOLL, ADDS DETAILS, CHANGES HEADLINE, DECK, LEDE
By Anadolu staff
ANKARA (AA) – At least 17 Palestinians, including two children, were killed on Friday in Israeli shelling targeting various areas of the Gaza Strip.
Medical sources at the Baptist Hospital told Anadolu that the Israeli attack targeted the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in northern Gaza City, killing six and injuring several civilians.
An Israeli strike targeted a home in the Al-Nasr neighborhood in the southern city of Rafah, killing a father and his daughter and injuring others, according to sources at the European Gaza Hospital.
Five more Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting a tent sheltering displaced people in the al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis.
The Israeli army had designated al-Mawasi a “safe zone” for displaced civilians in Gaza, but it shared the fate of many such allegedly safe areas in soon coming under attack by Israel.
In Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, four people, including a child and a woman, were killed when a strike hit an apartment and a makeshift tent sheltering displaced families, medical personnel at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital confirmed.
Eyewitnesses reported artillery shelling and smoke bombs targeting areas northwest of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, while warplanes bombed a commercial shop within the camp.
Israel has continued its devastating offensive against Gaza since a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. The onslaught has killed more than 43,700 people and rendered the enclave almost uninhabitable.
The Israeli onslaught has displaced almost the entire population of the territory amid an ongoing blockade that has led to severe shortages of food, clean water, and medicine.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its deadly war on Gaza.
*Writing by Ikram Kouachi