TANKS and armoured vehicles fired on family cars and buses in Gaza yesterday, slaughtering the occupants, while areas around al-Quds Hospital were continuously targeted by air strikes as Israel stepped up its genocidal onslaught.
Ambulances report they are now unable to reach areas targeted by air strikes because the roads have been destroyed.
Doctors say Israel told staff to evacuate Al-Quds hospital in Gaza City on Sunday and they continued to receive constant warnings from the Israeli army to evacuate yesterday, but that moving patients – many of whom are in intensive care – is impossible.
At least 8,306 people have been killed in the Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7th, including 3,457 children, 2,136 women and 480 elderly, while 21,048 have been injured.
Hamas released a 76-second video yesterday in which three Israeli women angrily blamed Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu for the ‘disaster of October 7th’ and demanded a ceasefire and a prisoner swap.
The video description read: ‘A number of Zionist prisoners held by Al-Qassam send a message to Netanyahu and the Zionist government.’
‘Hello Bibi Netanyahu,’ the woman sitting in the middle of the three began. ‘We are in Hamas captivity 23 days. Yesterday there was a press conference with the families of the hostages. We know that there was supposed to be a ceasefire. You were supposed to release all of us. You made a commitment to release all of us.
‘Instead of this, we are getting punished for your political national neglect because of that screw-up of yours on October 7th. Because there was no military there. Nobody came. Nobody heard us. We are innocent citizens, citizens who pay taxes to the State of Israel. You want to kill us all. You want to kill us all using the IDF. It isn’t enough that Israeli citizens were killed. Let us go. Let us go now. Let their citizens go, let their prisoners go. Free us. Free all of us. Let us return to our families now.’
Netanyahu reacted by calling the video Hamas ‘psychological propaganda’.
Meanwhile, Youmna El-Sayed, Al-Jazeera reporter in Gaza City, was warned to leave her home, even though there are no safe routes for evacuation.
In a live broadcast from inside her building as explosions from Israeli air attacks were going off all around, she said: ‘The phone call that we received was from a private number. The caller addressed my husband with his full name and told him: “This is the Israeli army, we are telling you to evacuate south because in the coming hours it is going to be very dangerous in the area where you are at…”
‘There are seven families overall in this building. Some of them have their relatives living with them as well, so there are about 100 people in this building. None of the other six families got a warning call from the Israeli military, like we did, so this was a direct threat just to us, to our family.’
Al-Jazeera condemned the threat, saying: ‘This vile threat comes only a few days after the indiscriminate killing of the family of Al Jazeera Arabic’s journalist, Wael al-Dahdouh, who were asked to move south before being bombed.’
At least 29 journalists have been killed since the start of the war, including 24 Palestinians.
Sherif Mansour, of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said he is ‘extremely alarmed’ by the phone call received by El-Sayed’s family in Gaza City. ‘A lot of Palestinian journalists have been taking a lot of risks reporting from Gaza. They have already paid a heavy toll. Many have lost colleagues, families and had to flee seeking safety when there is no safe haven or exit.’
Khadiya Patel, from the International Press Institute, said: ‘We are counting the number of journalist fatalities increasing daily.’
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