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FIGHTING NEAR HOSPITAL IN KHAN YOUNIS
Khan Younis, where Israeli forces advanced this month after a truce collapsed on Dec 1, also came under heavy bombardment on Thursday morning from warplanes and tanks near al-Amal hospital, west of Israeli positions.
The Palestinian Red Crescent, which runs the hospital and has its headquarters nearby, said 10 Palestinians were killed and 12 wounded in one bombardment there, the third strike targeting the area around the hospital in less than an hour.
Residents said they believed Israeli forces were trying to provoke a new exodus ahead of a further ground assault.
Nearby at Nasser Hospital, the main medical centre in Khan Younis and largest still functioning in Gaza, women and children shrieked as the dead and wounded were brought in.
A toddler lay motionless on a cot while medics tried to revive him; one doctor nodded “no”, signalling the boy was dead.
Israel reported three more of its soldiers killed, bringing its toll in the ground campaign to 169. The past week has seen some of its heaviest losses of the war so far.
Virtually all of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been driven from their homes at least once and many several times. Only a handful of hospitals still function.
In a statement on Thursday, the Israeli military said it “regrets the harm caused to uninvolved civilians” from a Dec 24 air strike on the Maghazi refugee camp that killed 70 people, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
The statement said warplanes struck two targets adjacent to where Hamas militants were operating, and a preliminary inquiry showed further buildings nearby were also hit, “which likely caused unintended harm to additional uninvolved civilians”. It added: “The IDF … is acting to draw conclusions and learn lessons from this event.”
The Palestinian health ministry denounced the attack as a massacre in a crowded residential square.
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