Lebanese state media and militant organizations report that the number of people killed by Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon has risen to 16, including a number of militants and members of paramedic groups.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah, a terrorist organization in Lebanon, claimed responsibility for a fatal bombing that targeted a paramedic center associated with a Sunni Muslim organization.
Hezbollah Rocket Attack Raises Tensions in Northern Israel
Hezbollah launched a barrage of at least thirty rockets into northern Israel, killing one man in the process.
Amidst almost daily bloodshed, primarily limited to the region around the Israel-Lebanon border, international negotiators have been frantically trying to avert an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Since October 8, when militants led by Hamas swept into southern Israel and started the Gaza War, Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel. In Israel, some 1,200 people were killed and another 250 were kidnapped.
The Health Ministry reports that there have been over 32,000 deaths and 74,000 injuries in Gaza; the ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians when tallying casualties. According to the ministry, two-thirds of the deceased are women and children.
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Airstrikes Force Closure of Al Amal Hospital
Furthermore, according to U.N. humanitarian officials, Al Amal Hospital in the southern part of the territory closed due to intense military activity, leaving two thirds of Gaza’s 36 hospitals closed.
There are currently just 12 functioning hospitals in Gaza, according to the World Health Organization. Two of these hospitals are “minimally functional,” while the remaining 10 are somewhat functional. There are four hospitals in the north and six in the south, U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters on Wednesday.
The bodies of two individuals who were slain inside Al Amal, together with the remains of six patients and their companion, were transferred on Monday by the International Committee for the Red Cross, the Palestine Red Crescent Society, and more than two dozen staff members before the hospital was shut down on Tuesday, according to Dujarric.
During a visit to the partially operational Kamal Adwan hospital in the north last week, Andrea De Domenico, the head of United Nations humanitarian operations in the Palestinian territories, said that the facility is receiving “about 15 malnourished children a day and is struggling to maintain services,” according to Dujarric.
The U.N. representative stated, “The hospital’s lone generator has been severely damaged, and health workers and patients desperately need food, water, and sanitation assistance.”
Around 70% of people in northern Gaza “are facing catastrophic hunger,” according to the U.N. World Food Program, but efforts to provide life-saving relief have been hampered by fighting and “access constraints” in providing food to those in need, according to Dujarric.
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