The Ministry of Health in Gaza, represented by its spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qudra, announced on Wednesday that 21,110 people have been killed and 55,243 injured by the Israeli aggression on the besieged Gaza Strip since 7 October.
Al-Qudra said that the Israeli occupation forces committed 16 massacres against entire families in the past 24 hours, killing 195 and injuring 325.
He expressed his fears that the occupation would repeat the scenario of Al-Shifa Medical Hospital, as it increased its targeting of the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis. He called on international institutions to take effective and urgent steps to protect the complex, its staff, the wounded, the sick, and the thousands of displaced people there.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said that the Israeli occupation forces arrested 12 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday night.
This brings the total number of arrests after 7 October to about 4,795, including those who were arrested from homes, through military checkpoints, those who were forced to surrender themselves under pressure, and those who were held hostage.
In another context, the Islamic Resistance Movement – Hamas- denied the validity of what the spokesperson for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Brigadier General Ramadan Sharif, said about the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation and its motives. It said that “all Palestinian resistance actions come in response to the occupation and its ongoing aggression on the Palestinian people and their sanctities.”
The movement said, in a statement: “We have repeatedly emphasized the motives and reasons for Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, foremost among which are the dangers threatening Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
On the ground, the Israeli army announced the killing of an officer and two soldiers in battles with resistance factions in the northern Gaza Strip. The army said in a statement: “An officer and two soldiers were killed in battles in the northern Gaza Strip,” without giving details about the circumstances of their deaths.
In the past hours, the occupation army announced the killing of 5 officers and soldiers, including a company commander in the Nahal Brigade of the elite forces. It also announced that 43 others were injured, including 9 seriously wounded, in the battles in the Gaza Strip in the past hours.
The number of Israeli army deaths has risen to 494 since the start of the war on Gaza on October 7, including 167 killed since the start of the ground operation on the 27 of the same month, according to official Israeli data.
Moreover, the Al-Quds Brigades – the military wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement – said that its fighters targeted 3 Israeli military vehicles with RPG and Tandom shells in the Al-Tuffah and Sheikh Radwan areas in Gaza City. The brigades added that their fighters clashed with an Israeli foot force of 10 soldiers, leaving them dead and wounded in the battalion axis in Khan Yunis.
The Al-Quds Brigades also announced that its fighters shot down an Israeli Sky Racing drone, number 523, in Gaza.
The Al-Qassam Brigades said that its fighters targeted 7 Israeli vehicles with “Al-Yassin 105” shells in Jabalia Al-Balad, killing and injuring several soldiers. The Brigades also said that its fighters destroyed an Israeli troop carrier with an “Al-Yassin 105” shell east of the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.
The Brigades added: “We targeted a Zionist force holed up in a house in Jabalia al-Balad with an RPO-A missile for the first time, killing and injuring all its members.” The Brigades said: “We attacked the enemy masses east of Bureij in central Gaza with heavy-caliber mortar shells.”
