GAZA: Health officials in Gaza said on Saturday that Israeli strikes overnight killed at least 60 people in the besieged territory, which was also grappling with a telecommunications blackout on the war's 99th day.
Witnesses in the Gaza Strip reported Israeli bombardment in the early morning. A correspondent said intense shelling and air strikes hit the Palestinian territory's south overnight.
"I was visiting my sister, and when I returned I found my house was bombed," said 60-year-old Samir Qashta, a resident of Rafah in southern Gaza, where many people have fled.
The Israeli army said its forces had struck dozens of rocket launchers that were "ready to be used" in central Gaza, and eliminated four of them in air strikes on Khan Yunis, Gaza's major southern city, near Rafah.
Ashraf al-Qudra, spokesman for the health ministry in the Palestinian territory, reported "more than 60 martyrs" in Israeli air strikes and artillery fire, with dozens more wounded.
Israel's relentless bombardment of Gaza since October 7 attack has killed at least 23,843 people, mostly women and children, according to an updated toll on Saturday from the territory's health ministry.
At Rafah's Al-Najjar hospital, mourners gathered and prayed around the bodies of slain relatives. One man held the body of a child, wrapped in white cloth, ahead of burial.
Internet and telecommunications services were cut as a result of Israeli bombardment, the main operator Paltel said, reporting the latest such disruption.
The Palestinian Red Crescent posted that the outage was increasing the challenges in "reaching the wounded and injured promptly".
Winter rains have exacerbated the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, where the UN estimates 1.9 million -- nearly 85 per cent of the population -- have been displaced. Many have sought shelter in Rafah and other southern areas.
The United Nations humanitarian office, OCHA, said that Israel was blocking aid convoys into northern Gaza.
"They have been very systematic in not allowing us to support hospitals," said OCHA's head for the Palestinian territories, Andrea De Domenico, decrying "a level of inhumanity... beyond comprehension."
In central Gaza, a lack of fuel forced the shutdown of the main generator of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, the health ministry said.
Health ministry spokesman Qudra accused Israel of "deliberately targeting hospitals... to put them out of service", warning of "devastating repercussions".
Hospitals, protected under international humanitarian law, have repeatedly been hit by Israeli strikes in Gaza since the war erupted.
Fewer than half of Gaza's hospitals are partly functioning, the World Health Organization says. — AFP
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