Israeli bombardment levels homes and apartment blocks across western Gaza City
Heavy Israeli air raids have continued to pound residential buildings in western Gaza City, targeting areas sheltering thousands of displaced people who had fled from the city’s east and north, Wafa news agency reports.
Citing its reporters on the ground, Wafa said Israeli strikes hit Abu Assi School in Shati refugee camp, the al-Waha and Muhanna apartment towers in Nassr neighbourhood, the Ayesh building, and several other family homes.
Air raids also struck a residential home near al-Karama towers, completely flattening it, while another raid destroyed the prayer area of a mosque in the west of Gaza City.
Israel releases 13 Palestinians from Gaza after months of detention
Israel has freed 13 Palestinians from Gaza after holding them for months under what medical and rights groups described as harsh and degrading conditions.
The detainees were released at the Kissufim crossing in central Gaza and taken by the ICRC to al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, where doctors said they were malnourished and showed injuries consistent with abuse.
Rights groups, including the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, say thousands of Palestinians from Gaza have been detained since Israel’s war on the enclave began nearly two years ago, with many subjected to forced disappearances, incommunicado detention and severe mistreatment.
Ex-Israeli army chief says Gaza casualties exceed 200,000
Former Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi has said that more than 200,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza, more than 10 percent of the enclave’s population, according to a report by The Guardian.
“This isn’t a gentle war. We took the gloves off from the first minute,” Halevi said. He added that “not once” did military legal advice restrict his operational decisions during 17 months as chief of staff.
His remarks align with casualty figures from Gaza’s Health Ministry, which Israel has dismissed as unreliable but which international agencies have deemed credible. Experts say Halevi’s comments confirm that Israeli military lawyers acted as “rubber stamps” rather than imposing legal constraints on attacks that have caused mass civilian casualties and displacement.
