UPDATE 3 – At least 17 Palestinians killed by Israeli army in northern Gaza

UPDATES DEATH TOLL, ADDS DETAILS

By Hosni Nedim

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) – The Israeli army on Thursday killed at least 17 Palestinians, including two sisters, in the ongoing onslaught on the northern Gaza Strip.

Eyewitnesses told Anadolu that three Palestinians, including two little sisters, were killed and others injured in Israeli artillery shelling of areas in Jabalia.

The Israeli army heavily struck the eastern areas of the Jabalia refugee camp and blew up homes and residential areas.

A fourth Palestinian was killed in Jabalia by an Israeli quadcopter drone as it opened fire on a group of people, local sources reported.

Four more people were killed when Israeli fighter jets struck a home in the Jabalia Al-Nazla area in northern Gaza, a medical source said.

A mother and her child also lost their lives in an Israeli strike on their home in the northern town of Beit Lahia, the source added. Two more people were also killed and three others injured in another attack in the same town.

Three more people were killed and 10 others injured in Israeli shelling of a group of civilians in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City, another medical source said.

Five people were also injured in Israeli shelling near a mosque in Jabalia in northern Gaza.

One more Palestinian was killed and several people were injured in an airstrike targeting Salah al-Din School, where hundreds of people have sheltered in northern Gaza City, a medical source said.

The Civil Defense Agency said that its teams were working to control a fire that erupted at the school after the attack.

An Israeli strike on a tent sheltering displaced civilians killed one person and injured several others in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, medics said.

The attacks came as the Israeli army continued its deadly onslaught on northern Gaza since Oct. 5 to allegedly prevent Hamas from regrouping amid a suffocating siege on the area. Palestinians, however, accuse Israel of seeking to occupy the area and forcibly displace its residents.

Since then, no humanitarian aid, including food, medicine, and fuel, was allowed into the area, leaving most of the population there on the verge of imminent famine.

More than 2,000 people have since been killed, according to Palestinian health authorities.

The onslaught was the latest episode in a brutal Israeli war on the Gaza Strip since October last year, despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.

Over 43,700 people have since been killed in Gaza, mostly women and children, and over 103,000 others injured, according to Palestinian health authorities.

Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its deadly war on Gaza.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar