Gaza rescuers say 10 killed as Israel announces new operation

Gaza rescuers said Israeli strikes killed 10 people on Saturday, after the Israeli military announced the early stages of an intensified operation aimed at defeating Hamas.

The stepped-up campaign came as the humanitarian situation in the besieged territory continued to worsen, with one of its last functioning hospitals warning it was no longer able to treat seriously wounded patients due to shortages of supplies and a nearby attack that damaged the premises.

Civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP 10 bodies had been brought to Gaza hospitals after strikes on Saturday morning.

Three people were killed and four wounded in drone strikes east of the southern city of Khan Yunis, he said, while three others were killed and several wounded in the bombing of a house in Jabalia, in the north.

An attack on an apartment northwest of Khan Yunis killed three people, he added, while one person was killed and five wounded, “including a girl, a young woman and a pregnant woman”, in a strike on a tent west of the same city.

The reports of deaths came after the Israeli army announced it had “launched extensive strikes and transferred forces to seize control of areas within the Gaza Strip”.

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The moves were part of the “the expansion of the battle in the Gaza Strip, with the goal of achieving all the war’s objectives, including the release of the abducted and the defeat of Hamas”, the military said.

The operation was launched as Israel faces pressure to lift a sweeping aid blockade it imposed on Gaza in early March as negotiations faltered over next steps in a ceasefire that collapsed weeks later.

Aid organisations have warned that the blockade has created critical shortages of everything from food and clean water to fuel and medicines.

Marwan Sultan, director of the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, said the situation there was “tragic and catastrophic after its surroundings were targeted again this morning, causing the collapse of ceilings and cracks in the walls”.

“The operating rooms and intensive care units are completely full and we are unable to receive any more critical cases,” he said.

He added there was “a severe shortage of blood units, medicines, medical and therapeutic supplies, and surgical procedures”.

Sultan said doctors had been forced to source blood for transfusions from other patients and even from themselves “due to the impossibility of donations from citizens due to malnutrition”.