Middle East latest: Israeli strikes across Gaza kill at least 50, many of them women and children
By The Associated Press
Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip have killed at least 50 people, many of them women and children, the territory’s Health Ministry said Thursday. The deadly strikes tore into residential buildings, a police station, and a tent for displaced Palestinians, among other locations.
One strike in northern Gaza killed at least 18 people and another killed 11, including at least one child, according to Palestinian health officials. The Israeli military said the strike on the police station targeted a militant command center.
Israel ended its ceasefire with Hamas and renewed its air and ground war over a month ago. It has sealed off Gaza’s 2 million Palestinians from all food and other imports since the beginning of March to pressure Hamas to release hostages. Around two dozen hostages are still believed to be alive.
Here’s the latest:
Israeli military admits responsibility for killing a UN staffer from Romania last month
The military initially denied it was responsible for the March 19 strike on a U.N. guesthouse in Gaza, which also wounded five other U.N. employees. Afterward, the U.N. concluded that an Israeli tank had struck the compound and said it had informed the military a day earlier that the location was a U.N facility.
Releasing its initial findings on Wednesday, the military said one of its tanks targeted the building “due to assessed enemy presence” and that the structure “was not identified by the forces as a U.N. facility” at the time. The attack prompted the United Nations to reduce its presence in the Gaza Strip, citing safety concerns.
Israel marks Holocaust Remembrance Day
A somber siren wailed across the country for two minutes of silence at 10 am Thursday. Cars stopped along the highway and people paused in their daily errands as they stood in silence.
Yom Hashoah, the day Israel observes as a memorial for the 6 million Jews killed by Nazi Germany and its allies in the Holocaust, is one of the most solemn dates on the country’s calendar.
Official observances began after sundown on Wednesday with a ceremony at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. At the ceremony, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon as “the main lesson of the Holocaust.”
“On this Holocaust Day, I promise: The military pressure on Hamas will continue. We will destroy all its capabilities. We will return all our hostages. We will defeat Hamas, and we will prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said.
Israel’s president Isaac Herzog is in Poland for the annual March of the Living in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. He was joined by some 80 Holocaust survivors and 10 survivors of Hamas captivity in Gaza.
Far-right Israeli minister is booed at Yale
Protesters booed and threw water bottles at Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who was invited to speak at Yale University
The minister, who has been convicted eight times for offenses including racism and supporting a terrorist organization, is in America on a week-long trip to meet with politicians, business leaders, and the Jewish community in the U.S.
According to the Yale student newspaper, Ben-Gvir was invited to speak with a Jewish group that is not formally affiliated with the university.
Ben-Gvir said he spoke to students and professors about the lessons of the Holocaust in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day, which Israel marks from Wednesday evening to Thursday. “The antisemitic rioters will not intimidate me. I am continuing my important journey in the United States,” he said.
Ben-Gvir oversees the country’s police force and has encouraged Netanyahu to press ahead with the war in Gaza and stop all humanitarian aid.
At least 50 killed as Israel pounds Gaza
Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip have killed at least 50 people, many of them women and children, according to the territory’s Health Ministry.
A series of strikes hit in the northern Jabaliya area. One killed nine people in a police station. The Israeli military said it targeted a command and control center for Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group. Other strikes in the area killed 18 people in a house and two people in a tent, the Health Ministry said. It did not immediately have details on the identities of the dead.
At least seven people were killed, including a mother and her two children, and another two children, in three strikes on the southern city of Khan Younis. Strikes in central Gaza killed six people, including two women and two children.
An airstrike on a home in Gaza City killed four children and their parents, and a later hit on an apartment building killed 11 people, including at least one child, the Health Ministry said.
