AGENCIES

A wave of Israeli strikes on Gaza yesterday targeted residential buildings and makeshift tents sheltering forcibly displaced families, killing at least 46 people.

Al Jazeera, quoting medical sources in the tiny Palestinian enclave, said at least 113 people were hospitalised with injuries.

Many victims are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them, they added.

Apart from overnight strikes, at least 13 people were killed in Israeli attacks since dawn.

In Khan Younis, overnight Israeli air strikes killed 19 people.

Mohamed Abou Ouda, a Khan Younis resident, told Al Jazeera that he woke up to his neighbour’s house having collapsed onto his.

“We did not hear the sound of a missile. We only saw smoke and a huge explosion that shook the whole neighbourhood,” Ouda said, adding that their home was now a pile of “twisted metal and burning memories”.

Abu Khaleel al-Madhoon, another resident of Khan Younis, said he was “devastated” by the attack.

“They were kind, peaceful people, never involved in anything. The explosion shook the entire area like an earthquake. The family was asleep, unaware, and in an instant, everything was gone. Children, women, all killed in cold blood. This is nothing short of pure brutality.”

Since Israel broke the ceasefire deal on March 18, at least 1,309 people have been killed and 3,184 wounded in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Gaza’s health ministry yesterday likened Israel’s prevention of polio vaccines in the besieged and bombarded territory to “a time bomb that threatens to spread the epidemic”.

In a statement, it said 602,000 children in Gaza were at risk of “permanent paralysis and chronic disabilities” unless they received the desperately needed vaccines. The ministry urged relevant health authorities to apply pressure on Israel to allow the entry of the polio vaccines.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military yesterday provided new details that changed its initial account of the killing of 15 emergency workers near the southern Gaza city of Rafah last month.

The 15 paramedics and emergency responders were shot dead on March 23 and buried in a shallow grave where their bodies were found a week later by officials from the United Nations and the Palestinian Red Crescent. Another man is still missing.