At least 15 killed in Israeli attack on central Gaza refugee camps
Palestinians fleeing Bureij in the central Gaza Strip amid continuing Israeli attacks, June 2024
Al Jazeera reports on 4 June 20224:
At least 15 people have been killed in Israeli ground and air attacks on the Bureij and Maghazi refugee camps in central Gaza, a Palestinian health official has said.
“More than 15 martyrs and dozens of injuries reached the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the last several hours,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health told reporters from outside the hospital grounds in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah.
If the “aggression” on the areas in central Gaza does not come to a halt, the number of those killed is expected to quickly rise, he said.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital is the only medical facility currently offering services to more than one million people in the area, the spokesperson said. The facility does not have the capacity for more patients, he warned, adding that the hospital is already “overflowing with wounded people”, many of whom are being treated on the floor.
An attack on another house in the neighbouring Maghazi refugee camp killed two people, according to officials at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
Earlier, the Israeli military said in a statement jets were hitting Hamas targets in central Gaza while ground forces were operating “in a focused manner with guidance from intelligence” in the al-Bureij area. Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Deir el-Balah, said medical staff at the hospital are overwhelmed by casualties pouring in.
“Doctors are running everywhere, searching for remaining medical supplies including antiseptics and anaesthetics to perform urgent operations to save lives,” Mahmoud said.
“We can still hear explosions of ongoing attacks and heavy machine-gun fire in the eastern area of central Gaza – including the densely populated Maghazi and Bureij camps,” he added. “We’re learning from victims’ relatives there are still entire families trapped inside bombed homes in those camps.”
Ceasefire proposal faltering?
Israeli forces waged an offensive earlier this year for several weeks in Bureij and several other nearby refugee camps in central Gaza.