Dec. 27 (UPI) — At least 59 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, 50 of them in a strike on a building near the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia in the far north, authorities said.
Five of those killed in the Beit Lahia strike worked at the Kamal Adwan, the last remaining hospital still operating in the north, including a pediatrician, a laboratory technician, two paramedics and a maintenance worker, according to hospital director Hussam Abu Safia.
At least nine people, including women and children, were killed Friday morning in three Israeli airstrikes targeting Gaza City and Rafah.
Four were killed when Israeli forces struck a house in the Shujaiya neighborhood in the eastern section of Gaza City, a young girl was killed following an attack on her family’s home in the Sedra neighborhood and three were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house near the Al-Istijaba Mosque in the Sabra district of the city.
In Rafah in the south, a woman died of her injuries after her home in the Nassr neighborhood in the east of the city was hit in an Israeli airstrike.
Kamal Adwan Hospital said it had been repeatedly targeted by Israel Defense Forces during the past week.
The IDF denied knowledge of Thursday’s strike near Kamal Adwan hospital but said that it was looking into claims that five medical personnel had been killed.
In a statement to ABC News, the IDF said it “operates against terrorists and terrorist infrastructure in the area of Jabalia and continued its operations over the last day.”
“The number of casualties reported in the media does not align with the information held by the IDF.”
Separately, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the killing of five Palestinian journalists in the Nuseirat area of central Gaza in an Israeli airstrike on Thursday and called for immediate steps to protect media workers.
“CPJ denounces Israel’s killing of five journalists working for Al-Quds Al-Youm TV,” CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna wrote in a post on X.
“The Israeli strike on their vehicle, which was clearly marked ‘Press,’ means that at least nine Gazan journalists have been killed in less than two weeks. The international community must act now to protect Palestinian journalists in Gaza and end Israel’s impunity for these killings,” said de la Serna.
The IDF insisted the attack was a “precision and intelligence guided strike” targeting Islamic Jihad operatives posing as journalists and that it had taken precautions to avoid hurting civilians.
“An Air Force aircraft attacked, with precision and intelligence guidance, a car carrying a cell of Islamic Jihad terrorists in the Nuseirat area in the central Gaza Strip,” IDF spokesman Avichay Adraee wrote on social media.
“Prior to the raid, numerous steps were taken to reduce the likelihood of civilian casualties, including the use of precision munitions, aerial reconnaissance and other intelligence.
“The IDF will continue to operate forcefully and decisively against the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip.”
The number of people killed in Gaza since Israel began its military operation in the strip following the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, stood at 45,399 as of Thursday with another 107,940 people injured, figures from the Hamas-run Ministry of Health show.
