More than 170 dead in Gaza in the last 24 hours; Israel claims it destroyed Hamas headquarters

First modification: 01/18/2024 – 17:19

4 min

“The situation in Gaza has gone from being catastrophic to being on the brink of collapse,” remarked the deputy executive director of Unicef, after a three-day visit to the Palestinian enclave.

And the attacks by the Israeli Army increase in the south of the coastal strip, where the majority of the population is located, internally displaced, after the military's orders to abandon the north of the territory in the first days of the war. in progress. This Thursday, January 18, in Khan Younis and Rafah, the main towns in that devastated area, violent clashes occurred between foreign troops and Hamas group militants.

But the Israeli Army hits the blocked territory both by land, by air and from the sea. At least 172 people died in the last 24 hours. And since last October 7, when hostilities between the two parties escalated, The total number of deaths amounts to 24,620. Besides, 61,830 Palestinians have been injured in Israeli attacks, according to the local Ministry of Health this Thursday.

For its part, the military institution assured that Its military destroyed the main Hamas headquarters in Khan Younis and killed around 60 Palestinian fighters, on the last day. About 40 of them died in the aforementioned city and others in the northern Gaza Strip, including in a compound used by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad faction, according to a statement in which it summarized its operations.

“Givati ​​Brigade soldiers carried out a targeted raid on the barracks, belonging to the Southern Battalion of Hamas' Khan Younis Brigade, and on the offices of the battalion commander and other senior officials,” the written statement said.

“They are fleeing in panic”: the operation of the Nasser hospital is threatened

The assaults this Thursday approached the Nasser hospital, the most important in the south of Gaza territory, which generates fears that this medical center will suffer the same fate as the Al-Shifa hospital, the main one in the north, which was closed after the siege. of Israeli troops last November.

“According to the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) surgeon at the Nasser hospital, last night Israeli forces heavily bombed the area near the hospital without prior evacuation orders, forcing patients and thousands of displaced civilians who had sought refuge in Nasser to flee as prisoners. of panic,” declared the NGO through the X platform.

One of the Israeli attacks hit a home in the city of Rafah, killing 16 people, half of them children, medical sources said.

Two-thirds of Gaza's hospitals have already stopped functioning and the rest are only partially operating. A closure of the Nasser hospital would further reduce trauma care available to the enclave's 2.3 million residents, around 85% of them internally displaced, as they are not allowed to leave the territory.

More than 100 days after Hamas detonated one of the high points of the long-running conflict – following its deadly attack in southern Israel, which killed 1,200 people – Israel continues the deadliest and most destructive military offensive in recent history. in Gaza. The hostilities are stoking tensions across the region and threatening to escalate other clashes.

West Bank in its greatest spiral of violence: at least one dead and more than 80 detained

Israeli soldiers shot dead a 27-year-old Palestinian this Thursday, on the second day of military operations in the city of Tulkarem and its two refugee camps, in the northern West Bank, where eight Palestinians died yesterday, local authorities reported.

The January 18 raid on the Nour Shams camp triggered clashes between local residents and troops. Israeli forces “blew up one house, burned another and brutally beat several civilians, amid widespread destruction of infrastructure,” the official Palestinian Wafa agency reported.

At least 85 Palestinians were detained a day earlier during raids in the West Bank. Among them, “about 40 Gaza workers” who remained in the area after being displaced from Israel after the escalation of the war three months ago, Wafa added.

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Since October 7, the Israeli Army has increased its armed incursions into the rest of the Palestinian Territories, where it claims to be searching for members of Palestinian militias such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

But Palestinians, even unarmed, face aggression both at the hands of the military and Israeli settlers, the UN stresses. This wave of violence has claimed the lives of more than 300 people, including 79 children, according to a report by the organization published last December.

With Reuters, AP and EFE