UN expert says Israel ‘genocide’ seeks ‘eradication’ of Palestinians
Outspoken UN rights expert Francesca Albanese has reiterated an allegation that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza, charging that the country is seeking the “eradication of Palestinians” from their land.
The independent expert on rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, who has long faced harsh Israeli criticism, said in a new report that “the genocide of the Palestinians appears to be the means to an end: the complete removal or eradication of Palestinians from the land so integral to their identity, and which is illegally and openly coveted by Israel”.
Mother and two sons killed in Israeli attack on central Gaza
A Palestinian mother and two of her sons have been killed during Israeli shelling of the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. Medical sources told the Wafa news agency members of the Nashwan family were killed during the attack.
Since October 7, 2023, Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed 43,020 citizens and injured 101,110, the majority of whom are children and women, according to the Health Ministry.
Death toll from Israeli attack in Beit Lahiya rises to 109
Medical sources have told Al Jazeera that 115 people have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza since dawn. The number includes 109 killed in the air strike on a residential building in Beit Lahiya that was hosting about 200 people.
A body is removed from the debris of the building hit by an Israeli strike in Beit Lahiya in Gaza
Palestinian rescuers and family members are scouring through the concrete wreckage of the demolished five-storey residential building in Beit Lahiya in the north of Gaza that Israel destroyed, killing at least 109 people.
A charred body with long hair hung out of an upper-storey window and corpses wrapped in blankets were lined up in the street below, as stunned relatives sought to identify the dead.
“The explosion happened at night and I first thought it was shelling, but when I went out after sunrise I saw people pulling bodies, limbs and the wounded from under the rubble,” said Rabie al-Shandagly, 30, who took refuge in a nearby school in Beit Lahiya.
“Most of the victims are women and children, and people are trying to save the injured. But there are no hospitals or proper medical care,” he said.
The Israeli military said it’s “looking into the reports” of the strike in Beit Lahiya.
Gaza’s death toll rises
At least 43,061 people have been killed and 101,223 wounded in Israeli military attacks on Gaza since October 7, 2023, the enclave’s Health Ministry says. Of those, 41 Palestinians were killed and 113 wounded in the latest 24-hour reporting period, the ministry added.
The toll did not include 109 people who were killed and dozens others wounded in the Israeli attack on a residential building in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza.
Four Israeli soldiers killed in northern Gaza fighting
The Israeli military says in a statement the families of the soldiers have been notified. The army has been carrying out a large-scale ground incursion and mass arrests in northern Gaza, frequently attacking residential buildings.
