Gaza/Tel Aviv, Dec. 19, (dpa/GNA) – At least 110 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, the Hamas-run Health Ministry in the embattled coastal area said on Monday as US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin was in Israel for talks.
Several residential houses were hit in Jabalia, which is home to a sprawling urban refugee camp, a spokesman for the ministry said, adding that further victims were expected to be buried under the rubble.
It was not possible to independently verify the claims.
Jabalia, considered a stronghold of the Palestinian extremist group Hamas that seized power in Gaza by force in 2007, has been at the centre of intense fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas.
Israel launched a ground invasion into Gaza following the attacks on October 7, which saw fighters from Hamas and other militant groups rampage through Israeli border communities, killing some 1,200 people and abducting some 240 into the coastal area.
Almost 19,000 Palestinians have been killed so far in retaliatory Israeli bombardment of Gaza and the ground operation.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have repeatedly called on civilians to flee to the south of the sealed-off strip, but fighting has long reached that area as well and the humanitarian situation is considered to be catastrophic.
Aid organizations have for weeks been warning that supplies, including fuel and medical equipment, have reached devastating low levels, and that aid deliveries reaching Gaza are merely a trickle of what is needed.
For the first time since the outbreak of the war, a ship carrying aid is en route from Cyprus to Gaza, radio station RIK reported Monday, citing the government in Nicosia.
It was initially unclear where the British navy vessel would dock to unload its cargo.
Cyprus in the Mediterranean has for weeks been working to establish humanitarian deliveries by sea. The first transport from the port of Larnaca is seen as a test for the establishment of a reliable aid corridor.
International calls on Israel to reign in its military operation in Gaza to reduce civilian casualties and to agree to a pause in fighting to facilitate more aid deliveries have been mounting, but the country seems so far unfazed by the increasing global pressure, including from its biggest ally, the United States.
US defence chief Austin was in Israel as part of a multi-day trip to the Middle East that also includes visits to Kuwait and Bahrain.
The US official is to hold talks with Israel’s military leadership, where he is to repeat calls on the IDF to scale back its intensive ground operations and airstrikes on Gaza, according to the Pentagon.
According to a New York Times report from Sunday, citing military circles, Austin is also scheduled to hold talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his counterpart Yoav Gallant.
Among the criticism Israel has drawn for its military campaign is the alleged killing by one of its snipers of two women who had sought shelter in a Catholic Church compound in Gaza.
According to the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which oversees Catholic Churches across Cyprus, Jordan, Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, an IDF sniper allegedly killed a woman and her daughter inside the Holy Family Parish in Gaza on Saturday.
They had taken refuge on the site following the outbreak of the war and were “shot in cold blood inside the premises of the Parish, where there are no belligerents,” the Patriarchate said in a statement on Saturday.
Israeli forces had not issued a warning beforehand, the statement added.
The IDF has launched an investigation into the allegations, the army said upon request late on Sunday.
According to preliminary findings, Israeli troops had “identified a threat in the area of the church,” it said.
The army was taking allegations of damage and incidents at “sensitive locations,” and churches in particular, extremely seriously – also in view of the fact that Christian communities are a minority in the Middle East, the IDF said.
GNA