Scores killed and injured in Israeli targeting of ambulance convoy

DUBAI (Reuters):  The health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza said scores of Palestinians were killed and injured on Friday in Israeli targeting of an ambulance convoy carrying critically wounded people in Gaza.

The health ministry spokesman, Ashraf Al-Qudra, earlier said they would send critically injured Palestinians who needed to be urgently transferred for treatment in Egypt from Gaza city and the north to the south.

Israel’s military said that they were kooking into a report of the attack of the ambulance convoy

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken appealed to Israel on Friday to take steps to protect civilians in Gaza as its forces kept up their bombardment of the Palestinian enclave and the death toll among residents soared.

The Israeli military said its troops were fighting Hamas militants in close-quarter combat in the ruined streets after encircling Gaza City in their bid to wipe out the Islamist group that controls the small, densely populated territory.

Israeli forces also pounded Gaza from ground, sea and air throughout the night amid rising global alarm over scarcities, collapsing medical services and a civilian death toll that has now surpassed 9,000.

Israeil puts Gaza City under total siege as Blinken seeks pauses in war

Blinken was visiting the region for the second time in less than a month to show support for close ally Israel in its response to the Oct. 7 Hamas militant attack on southern Israeli communities that killed some 1,400 people and triggered the war.

Speaking before meeting Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Blinken reiterated that Israel has a right to “do everything possible” to ensure that such an attack never happened again.

But he added: “It is very important when it comes to protection of civilians who are caught in the crossfire of Hamas’s making, that everything be done to protect them and to bring assistance to those who so desperately need it, who are not in any way responsible for what happened on October 7.”

Washington has dismissed calls from Arab and several other nations for a full ceasefire in the war – now in its 28th day – but wants more temporary and local pauses in fighting to allow aid to get into Gaza and for hostages taken by Hamas to leave.

Food, fuel, water and medicine are running out in Gaza, buildings have been flattened and thousands of people have fled their homes to escape relentless bombing.