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Forums - Politics Discussion - Israel-Hamas war, Gaza genocide

zeldaring said:

Thanks for all the updates man, i try not to watch cause i feel like it's hopeless and these people can get away with anything makes my blood boil.

Thanks. There is some hope. This video explains a lot of how it all came to be and why Israel can get away with anything. However it also shows the Israeli lobby relying a lot on 'inertia' and expectations that their old propaganda tricks "Hasbara" still works. They do on the older population, but newer generations are waking up. Zionist Settler Colonialism is being exposed more and more.



But indeed, in the short term it feels hopeless. Biden has hijacked the negotiations with a bad faith 'deal', pushing out other countries attempts at negotiating a ceasefire / end of the war. The only hope left for the USA to actually do something is that they don't want to be dragged in a wider scale war, while Israel is set on invading Southern Lebanon and has already tried to drag the USA into war with Iran.

Iran doesn't want that either but will surely support Hezbollah if Israel invades Southern Lebanon. Israel has become a liability to the US and at some point all the lobbying is going to hit a dead end. However when is the question. For now Biden (and Trump) rely on funding from the billionaire class (about a third of their campaign funding from about 50 billionaires) which are dead set letting Israel do what it wants. And Biden rather appeases the hand that feeds him over representing the public.

Israel is getting more isolated though, and in turn the USA as well. Changes are happening. It's a slow process however and meanwhile more people are getting starved, maimed and killed :(



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WFP warns of 1m ‘trapped’ in southern Gaza without clean water, sanitation as fighting escalates

Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), said a “public health and protection disaster” is unfolding in southern Gaza where one million displaced people are trapped amid a “shocking” level of “destruction”.

Reporting after the completion of a two-day mission to Gaza, Skau said the challenges faced by humanitarian workers are “like nothing I have ever seen” amid escalating fighting in the south and centre of Gaza, which is taking a devastating toll on the civilian population.

“From the south to the northernmost tip of the Strip, people are traumatised and exhausted,” he said in a post on social media.

“People want a ceasefire, and they want dignity back,” Skau said in a video interview.

WFP says struggling to distribute food within Gaza

WFP’s Carl Skau says the main challenge for the team is not getting food to the borders but distributing it inside Gaza.

“Our main concern at the moment is in the south. Since the operation in Rafah, we’ve had to move our offices and our warehouses to Deir el-Balah further north and we are now struggling to assist hundreds of thousands of people who have been displaced from Rafah,” he said.

“Food, basic food commodities are available but we’re extremely concerned about the protection crisis and water and sanitation crisis. There is deep concern about the trajectory of the situation in the south.”

‘Significant number’ of Gaza population will starve to death without aid: Medic

Dr Thaer Ahmad, who had volunteered at the Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza in January, said even then that malnutrition in Gaza was expected to rise, and the World Food Programme had warned as early as November that malnutrition was increasing and emergency aid needed to enter Gaza.

“When we were there in January, we saw just how difficult it was for aid trucks to get into the Gaza Strip and get to vulnerable populations. So this is something that many NGOs, many health professionals have been warning about,” Dr Ahmad told Al Jazeera, speaking from Washington, DC.

“You cannot just continue to allow the crisis of humanitarian aid delivery … and not expect that there are going to be consequences on the population,” Ahmad said.

“There is going to be a portion of the population that is going to die because of the lack of food. Specifically, what you see is that people – who are malnourished, who are dealing with dehydration – if they have a common cold or if they have some sort of stomach virus, they will die as a result of this because of the conditions on the ground,” he said.

“People starving to death. That’s what we are talking about, and we are talking about a significant number of the population,” he added.“The solution is very clear and it is very simple. Get aid in. Get food in. Get water in. And that’s just not happening right now.”

Children in Gaza suffering from disease due to malnutrition

Clinical nutritionist Rana Zuaiter says children in Gaza are thirsty as the water is contaminated. She told Al Jazeera there is no food security  or humanitarian aid in the besieged enclave. As a result, 90 percent of children suffer from diarrhoea, hepatitis and other diseases.

Zuaiter added that a lack of diet diversity and food insecurity are some factors driving this increase in malnutrition cases. “One in three children is suffering from starvation. It’s a huge number of man-made starvation, which Israel uses as a weapon of war,” she said.

She urged the world to stop the air strikes and to allow food aid distribution within Gaza to prevent starvation.



Lack of access to water in Gaza ‘critical’, hunger ‘catastrophic’, UN warns

There is “critically low” access to water in Gaza and “catastrophic hunger” is affecting a significant portion of the population, while there are only two “stabilisation centres” for severely malnourished children, UN agencies warn.

The latest Gaza situation update from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) also reports that 142 Palestinian people were reported killed and 396 injured in Israeli attacks between Monday and Friday afternoon.

Due to the rising lack of security in the Gaza Strip, there are currently no international emergency medical teams operating in southern Rafah or the north of the Palestinian territory, OCHA reports, while persistent fuel shortages due to Israel’s border blockade of the territory “threaten the functioning of vital medical infrastructure and equipment”.


Lack of water making near-famine conditions across Gaza worse

Israeli forces have destroyed nearly all the water wells in northern Gaza. The lack of water is making the near-famine conditions across Gaza worse as Palestinians struggle to access clean drinking water.

Footage shared online, and verified by Al Jazeera, shows a stampede and crowding among the displaced people at UNRWA schools trying to get drinking water on a daily basis.

“See how people suffer from lack of water and the spread of sewage, shelter and other challenges, including lack of food and aid,” one of the displaced people said. “I came for several days trying to get water but wasn’t successful,” said an elderly woman. “We were displaced from Beit Hanoon after we lost our homes and now in Jabalia camp, we beg for water.”

One woman said that “the Israelis destroyed not only our homes but water wells too … we cannot feed our children and now we cannot find a drop of clean water”. “This is not life. Even animals have a better life compared to us. We are butchered, if not by the Israeli bombardment, by starvation and lack of water,” she added.

In addition to wells, Israeli strikes and incursions destroyed desalination units and its troops are blocking fuel. Some Palestinians have resorted to drinking seawater.

Palestinians in Gaza ‘denied aid, protection, dignity’

James Elder, a UNICEF spokesman, says the situation in Gaza is “dire”.

“It should break our hearts that it’s been allowed to get to this point,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that as soon as he walked into the hospital in Deir el-Balah, he found a little boy named Ali who was asleep in the family home five days ago when it was struck. “He fell three floors and landed in rubble. I met his mother who said the two other siblings have been killed. This has gone on for 250 days,” Elder said.

Now Palestinians are living in “sweltering heat… in tents crammed together in a breathless space with 40-degree heat on sand,” he said. “They’re being denied aid, protection, dignity.”

Elder added that on Wednesday, UNICEF had a mission to drive a truck full of nutritional and medical supplies for 10,000 children. Their task was to deliver the aid, which was preapproved by Israeli authorities, from Deir el-Balah to Gaza City, a 40km (25 miles) round trip.

“It took 13 hours and we spent eight of those around checkpoints, arguing around paperwork – was it a truck or a van,” he said. “The reality is, this truck was denied access. Those 10,000 children did not get that aid.”

“Israel as the occupying power has the legal responsibility to facilitate that aid.”

Israeli forces shot dead fishermen, denied them medical care

Elder says he witnessed Israeli forces shoot dead two Palestinian fishermen in Gaza and denied them medical care. “I was watching fishermen – they were probably lawyers and engineers in a past life – with a single fishing net each, just trying to catch a few fish for their families. Suddenly, a tank came from the very large Israeli checkpoint,” Elder told Al Jazeera.

He said that he and doctors and paramedics from other UN agencies witnessed two fishermen flee on foot only to be shot down on the beach. They immediately called the Israeli army for permission to provide medical attention to the fishermen.

“That help was denied,” Elder said. “Half an hour later, the other fishermen took body bags and went down to the beach.” One of the fishermen, Elder added, was shot in the back, while the other was shot in the neck.

“I know that because I saw that, only because we bore witness to that. These are not unique events on the Gaza Strip.”


Palestinian fishermen fish next to the beach of the central Gaza Strip



‘Direct targeting’: Attacks on Gaza’s schools continue to increase

More than 76 percent of schools in the Gaza Strip require “full reconstruction or major rehabilitation” to be functional in the future, according to a new assessment.

Based on satellite imagery collected in May, the new Education Cluster assessment highlights a “continuous spike in the direct targeting of schools” the latest Gaza situation update from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports.

Of the school buildings used as shelters for displaced people in Gaza, 69 percent have been directly hit or damaged in attacks, OCHA reports. And more than 96 percent of the schools directly attacked – 296 in total – were located in areas subject to Israeli military evacuation orders, OCHA adds.

Talal al-Hathal, director of the Al Fakhoora Programme at the Education Above All Foundation in Qatar, said Israelis attacks have ravaged Gaza’s educational sector.

Such attacks are “shameful as we consider the global education crisis where we see that more than 250 million children are out of school globally”, al-Hathal told Al Jazeera.




Israel has ‘systematic strategy’ of making Gaza uninhabitable

What we’re seeing in Rafah is part of a long, systematic strategy by the Israeli military since day one of this war.

The deliberate and intentional destruction of all means of life, including public facilities, infrastructure, as well as residential homes, turned entire residential blocks and homes and areas into piles of rubble across the Gaza Strip.

Just a cursory look at what’s going on feeds into one conclusion: Israel and its military, an occupying force on the ground, are doing whatever in their power to make Gaza uninhabitable, and that includes the deliberate destruction of residential homes.

Don’t forget that people here, the one thing that they have right now … is the hope of going back to their homes.

But with the ongoing systematic demolition of their homes either in the northern part of Gaza City, the central areas and right now what we’re seeing in Tal as-Sultan in Rafah City, hundreds upon hundreds of homes are being demolished.


A view of destroyed residential area following the Israeli attacks as Palestinians try to spend their daily lives in Khan Younis, Friday



Palestinians repurpose Israeli ammunition boxes into firewood

Empty, discarded Israeli ammunition boxes are being recycled by enterprising Palestinians for sale as firewood in Gaza.

Amid a shortage of cooking gas in the Palestinian territory, firewood is prized by displaced families as fuel for preparing cooked meals.

“These are the remnants from the occupation when the Israeli army withdrew from our land, from Khan Younis. We collected them to sell to people as firewood,” Abdullah al-Hindi told Al Jazeera.

Palestinians keep Eid spirit alive amid the war


Members of the Sharrab family prepare Eid biscuits on the rubble of their house destroyed by Israeli attacks

The Sharrab family family is distributing the biscuits to other Palestinians to keep the spirit of Eid alive

Palestinian fighters use ‘combat compounds’ in battle for Rafah: Monitors

Palestinian fighters continued to attack Israeli forces deployed along the Netzarim Corridor on Friday, and reported carrying out two boobytrap attacks that brought down a house on top of Israeli forces in one case and collapsed a tunnel entrance in another, war monitors report.

Hamas said it detonated the “house-borne” improvised explosive device in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City, inflicting casualties on Israeli soldiers who were inside, and also detonated a rigged tunnel entrance to the east of the same area.

Hamas said it observed Israeli helicopters evacuating soldiers from the Zeitoun area after the attacks, US-based defence think tanks the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and Critical Threats Project (CTP) report.

Israeli forces report that Palestinian fighters in Rafah are using inter-linked buildings as “battle compounds” for quick movement through neighbourhoods, similar to what was used in the recent weeks-long fighting in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, the ISW/CTP report.

There were also several “indirect fire attacks” launched towards Israel from the Gaza Strip on Friday, the monitors said



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The US definitely doesn't want to be dragged into full scale wars with Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq

Iraqi group claims it carried out drone raid against Israel’s Haifa

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq said it launched a drone attack against the northern Israeli port city of Haifa, according to a statement posted on the group’s Telegram channel and confirmed by Al Jazeera’s Sanad verification unit.

There were no immediate reports from Israeli authorities regarding a drone attack, or if one had been repelled.

In the statement, the group also pledged its support for Palestinians in “resisting the occupation”, adding that it is “giving permission to those who fight” against persecution.

US military says Houthi radar sites hit in Yemen, Red Sea drones destroyed

The US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) said its forces hit seven Houthi radar installations in Yemen over the past 24 hours, and in separate attacks destroyed surface and aerial drones in the Red Sea region.

CENTCOM, which is responsible for US forces operating in the Middle East, said two “uncrewed surface drones” were destroyed in the Red Sea and one aerial drone was shot down in the sky over the sea.

The radar sites hit in Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen had allowed the targeting of vessels in the Red Sea, the US command said in a post on social media.

Houthi fighters say their attacks on Israeli-linked shipping – and ships using Israeli ports – in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden are in retaliation for Israel’s war on Gaza and that their campaign will end when fighting in the Palestinian territory ends.

More on the latest Houthi attack on Greek-owned vessel M/V Tutor

The search for a Filipino sailor who went missing after a Greek-owned vessel was hit and left stricken by a Houthi surface drone is continuing, said Hans Leo Cacdac, chief of the Department of Migrant Workers in the Philippines.

Cacdac said 21 of the 22 all-Filipino crew members of the vessel, the M/V Tutor, that was hit by the “uncrewed surface vessel” have been evacuated and the abandoned ship is now drifting in the Red Sea.

“It just boils down to finding our seafarer who is still onboard,” Cacdac told a news conference in Manila.

The missing crew member was believed to be inside the engine room of the ship when it was hit by the drone, resulting in “severe flooding and damage” to the room, the US military said earlier on Saturday.

The attack near the Yemeni port of Hodeidah on Wednesday also left the Tutor unable to manoeuvre.

It was the third Houthi attack on a ship crewed by Filipino seafarers since last year, with two Philippine sailors killed and 17 still held by the Houthis in Yemen, government data show.



Israeli raid reported in Lebanon’s Kfar Kila

According to the Lebanese news agency, NNA, a house was “completely destroyed” and a fire broke out in the town of Kfar Kila following a “hostile Israeli raid”. It was not immediately clear what type of weapon was used in the attack.

The report said an ambulance was deployed to the area following the incident but the number of casualties from the attack was not immediately clear.


Israel says warplanes pound southern Lebanon

Israel’s military said attack aircraft hit a Hezbollah missile launcher in Southern Lebanon’s Yaroun area and a “munitions warehouse”, “military building” and “terrorist infrastructure” in the Ramyah, Hula and Aitaroun areas of the south.

Night-time video footage accompanying the military’s post on social media showed residential buildings and other sites in the Lebanese countryside being blasted from the air by missiles.

About a dozen rockets and missiles were also fired from Lebanese territory towards northern Israel on Friday evening, without causing casualties, the military added.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad ready to send fighters from Syria to support Hezbollah in Lebanon: Report

The Associated Press (AP) news agency reports that the Syrian branch of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) is prepared to send additional forces to Lebanon in case Israel launches a full-scale war against Hezbollah.

“All Palestinian youth look forward to facing the Israeli occupation and joining Hezbollah in this resistance,” said Ismail al-Sendawi, national relations officer for the Islamic Jihad in Syria.

Al-Sendawi spoke at a ceremony in Damascus on Friday commemorating members of PIJ from Syria who have died fighting in Lebanon against Israeli forces over the past eight months.

Sixteen Palestinian refugees from Syria, all PIJ members, have died to date fighting in southern Lebanon against Israeli forces, AP reports.

Casualties reported in Israeli drone strike in Lebanon

Lebanese media is reporting that an Israeli drone strike has hit a motorcycle between the southern towns of Bint Jbeil and Aitaroun in southern Lebanon and casualties are feared.

Over the past few days, attacks between Hezbollah and Israeli forces have increased, following the latter’s assassination of Taleb Abdullah, the most senior Hezbollah commander killed since October 8.


Israel confirms attack on motorcycle in southern Lebanon

As we reported earlier, an Israeli drone attack hit a motorcycle near the southern Lebanese towns of Bint Jbeil and Aitaroun. The Israeli military has confirmed the attack, saying on Telegram that the aircraft struck a “Hezbollah terrorist” in the area.

“Moreover, [Israeli army] artillery fired to remove a threat in the area of Aitaroun”.

Fire breaks out in Goren, western Galilee

The Israeli army says several rockets launched from Lebanon have fallen in Goren in western Galilee and a fire has broken out in the area.



Israel’s attacks in West Bank ‘adding to the growing burden of trauma’

The World Health Organization (WHO) has expressed its concerns over the escalating health crisis in the occupied Palestinian territory, including the West Bank, where attacks on health infrastructure and increased restrictions on movement are obstructing access to health care”.

At least 547 Palestinians have been killed in a spike in violence in West Bank since October 7.

“In addition, over 5,200 people, 800 of them children, have been injured, adding to the growing burden of trauma and emergency care at already strained health facilities.” said the WHO in a statement.

“As of 28 May, WHO has documented 480 attacks on health care in the West Bank since 7 October 2023, resulting in 16 deaths and 95 injuries. The attacks affected 54 health facilities, 20 mobile clinics and 319 ambulances.

“The closure of checkpoints, arbitrary obstructions, and detentions of health workers, rising insecurity, as well as the siege and closure of entire towns and communities has made movement within the West Bank increasingly restricted, impeding access to health facilities. Extensive infrastructure and housing damage, particularly in the northern West Bank, have compounded the situation by obstructing access for ambulances and first-aid responders.”

Clashes, detentions reported as Israeli army raids occupied West Bank communities

The Israeli military has stormed the town of Burqa, northwest of Nablus in the West Bank, igniting clashes with Palestinian armed groups in the area.

The Palestinian news agency, Wafa, also reported that two Palestinians were detained by Israeli forces following separate raids targeting the Jalazone refugee camp and the al-Masayef neighbourhood in the city of Ramallah.

Clashes also erupted during the two raids in Ramallah, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage to property.

Israeli settlers accused of burning agricultural lands in occupied West Bank

Agricultural lands planted with olives and almonds have been burned following an attack by illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian news agency, Wafa.

The report said that an area equivalent to seven acres (about 2.8 hectares) of land was destroyed in the area of Husan, a town located west of Bethlehem, following the attack.

Israeli settlers from illegal settlements have ramped up attacks on Palestinian properties, including centuries-old olive plantations, since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, some resulting in deaths.

Israeli forces shoot, injure two during raids in occupied West Bank

Two Palestinians have been injured, one critically, during a dawn raid carried out by Israeli forces in the Jalazone refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian news agency, Wafa.

Wafa quoted the Palestinian Red Crescent Society as saying that one of those injured was hit with bullets in the head and his condition was described as critical. The other was hit with bullet fragments in the abdomen and leg. Both were taken to hospital.

Two other Palestinians were also detained in raids in Jalazone and the al-Masayef neighbourhood of Ramallah. Among those arrested was a man originally from the Gaza Strip, Wafa reports.

More on the latest Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank

Aside from the city of Ramallah and the Jalazone refugee camp, Israeli forces also targeted the town of Kfardan, west of Jenin, in the series of raids overnight in the occupied West Bank.

According to our colleagues from Al Jazeera Arabic, Israeli forces raided the house of a man identified as Ahmed al-Rashad, resulting in the clashes with Palestinian residents in the area.

Confrontations also broke out between Palestinian youths and the Israeli forces in the town of Beit Ummar, north of Hebron. The occupation forces raided the centre of the town, confiscated a number of vehicles, and searched private properties.

Israeli forces withdraw from Beita after raiding houses

Israeli forces have withdrawn from the town of Beita, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, several hours after storming it. The forces raided the town at dawn, targeting several houses and destroying contents inside them. They used tear gas against Palestinian youth.

Fighting was also reported after Israeli forces stormed the town of Kafr Dan where military vehicles conducted patrols in its streets before storming homes inside the town.

Raids were also reported in Jenin, Qalqilya and Hebron. Two Palestinians were injured in Jalazone refugee camp north of Ramallah, one of them in a critical condition due to a head injury. Israeli forces arrested one person.



Terror, trauma as Israeli military strikes homes in Deir el-Balah



People are removed from the rubble following an Israeli strike on a residential building in Deir el-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip on Friday


Exclusive Al Jazeera videos show aftermath of deadly strikes on Gaza

Exclusive video clips captured by our Al Jazeera Arabic colleagues show the aftermath of the latest Israeli air strikes in Gaza City’s Tuffah neighbourhood.

The Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that 14 people were killed, including women and children, in the Tuffah attack and an Israeli strike in Gaza City’s Shujayea neighbourhood overnight.

In the video, rescue workers and residents were seen scrambling to search for survivors under the rubble and are seen carrying victims. According to the Palestinian news agency, Wafa, at least three homes were targeted in the overnight attack, leaving many fatalities including women and children.

Translation: The dead and wounded following an Israeli bombing that targeted homes in the Tuffah neighbourhood in Gaza City.

Rescuers attempting to retrieve women, children buried under rubble in Shujayea

Not only are we seeing more people killed inside homes because of the ongoing bombing, but the enforced starvation and lack of hydration is threatening the lives of many people in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

Overnight attacks targeted three residential homes in Shujayea neighbourhood in eastern Gaza City. Witnesses told us two of these homes were occupied by displaced families from different parts of Shujayea neighbourhood.

Fourteen people have already been pulled from under the rubble. Paramedics and civil defence rescuers are expecting five more to be pulled out.

The Israeli military continues to bomb areas in the west part of Rafah city, Tal as-Sultan and in the vicinity of the Emirati field hospital, targeting the outskirts of an evacuation centre that’s an UNRWA school.

It’s causing a great deal of panic and concern as those people are unable to leave these areas. There are quadcoptors and surveillance drones in the entire area. What they do is chase people and shoot at them.



At least one baby killed as Israel’s targeting of homes in Gaza continues

Earlier today, at least 19 Palestinians, including at least one baby, were killed and 50 others were wounded in Israeli air strikes targeting homes in eastern Gaza City, Wafa news agency reported.

Israeli jets targeted three homes in the Tuffah and Shujayea neighbourhoods in Gaza City, resulting in the casualties, including children and women.

Anadolu Agency quoted witnesses as saying that an Israeli jet struck the home in Tuffah when dozens of people were inside.

The Palestinian Civil Defence rescue teams removed the body of a baby and transferred dozens of injured victims to a hospital, the witnesses said, adding that volunteers continue to look for the injured under the rubble.

Israeli forces demolish evacuated homes in Rafah

Footage shared online, and verified by Al Jazeera, shows Israeli bulldozers demolishing homes west of Rafah that were already partially damaged by the attacks carried out by Israeli forces.

Translation: This is what the army is doing now in Tal as-Sultan, west of Rafah


Gaza’s death toll rises

At least 37,296 people have been killed and 85,197 wounded in Israeli military attacks on Gaza since October 7, the enclave’s Health Ministry says. Of those, 30 Palestinians were killed and 95 wounded in the past 24-hour reporting period, the ministry added.


Bodies of 9 Palestinians retrieved in Rafah: Report

Rescue teams in the Gaza Strip have retrieved the bodies of nine Palestinians from different areas in Rafah, the Wafa news agency reported, quoting medical sources at the European Gaza Hospital in Khan Younis.

The bodies, Wafa reported, were retrieved from the rubble of houses bombarded in Israeli attacks.

Health workers unable to rescue people in Rafah

There are land, air, and sea attacks on Rafah right now, where there have been dozens of houses demolished by the Israeli forces. There were also a couple of warships shooting at Palestinians across the coastline.

Also, there are zero hospitals in Rafah. There is no medical treatment, and all of the Palestinians who are being injured or killed do not have any medical teams to rescue them.

There have been reports from journalists, healthcare workers and paramedics that they could not reach an area, we’re talking about areas like Tal as-Sultan and those areas in the centre of Rafah.

There has been a lot of demolishing of houses, and it has been uninhabitable for Palestinians and not just Palestinians who are internally displaced. They have no place to go just like what happened in Khan Younis.

All of the people who are injured and the paramedics could reach are going to the European Hospital in Khan Younis.