Operation Near Mossad HQ Kills, Injures Dozens
GAZA STRIP (Dispatches) — Israeli strikes on northern Gaza have martyred at least 33 people, mostly women and children, Palestinian officials said Sunday, as the Zionist regime’s brutal onslaught on the hard-hit and isolated area entered a third week and the UN secretary-general called the plight of Palestinians there “unbearable.”
In a separate development, a truck rammed into a bus stop near Tel Aviv, killing one settler and wounding more than 30 others. Israeli police said the attacker was an Arab living in the Israeli occupied territories. The ramming occurred outside a military base and near the headquarters of Israel’s Mossad spy agency.
Later Sunday, protesters disrupted a speech by Zionist prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a nationally broadcast ceremony for those killed in Hamas’ attack operation inside the southern Israeli occupied territories last year. People shouted “Shame on you” and forced Netanyahu to stop his speech. Many settlers blame Netanyahu for the failures that led to the’ attack and hold him responsible for not yet securing the release of the remaining captives.
An Israeli official said Mossad chief David Barnea is traveling to Qatar for ceasefire and captive release talks.
In Ramat Hasharon, northeast of Tel Aviv, the truck slammed into a bus as settlers were returning to work after a holiday, leaving some people stuck under vehicles.
Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said six of the wounded were in serious condition. The Ichilov Medical Center reported that one person had died.
Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad resistance group praised the attack but did not claim it.
Palestinians have carried out scores of stabbings, shootings and car-ramming operations over the years in retaliation for non-stop Israeli atrocities. With Gaza left in trail of death and destruction, Israel has carried out regular military raids into the occupied West Bank that have left hundreds dead.
The Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service said 11 women and two children were among the 22 martyred in strikes late Saturday on several homes and buildings in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. It said another 15 were wounded.
A Health Ministry official, Hussein Mohesin, said 11 people were martyred in an Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter in the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza. The Zionist regime has struck a number of such shelters, often killing women and children, saying it targets militants hiding among civilians.
Israel has waged a massive air and ground invasion against northern Gaza since early October. Thousands of people have been martyred and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled to Gaza City in the latest wave of displacement.
Aid groups have warned of a catastrophic situation in northern Gaza, which has suffered the heaviest destruction of the war. Israel has severely limited the entry of basic humanitarian aid in recent weeks, and the three remaining hospitals in the north — one raided over the weekend — say they have been overwhelmed by waves of wounded.
The UN secretary-general in a statement by his spokesperson noted “harrowing levels of death.” The International Committee of the Red Cross on Saturday described the civilian population in “horrific circumstances.”
The Zionist regime’s onslaught on Gaza has martyred nearly 43,000 Palestinians, according to enclave’s Health Ministry.
The invasion has devastated much of Gaza and displaced around 90% of its population of 2.3 million, often multiple times. Hundreds of thousands of people have crowded into squalid tent camps, and aid groups say hunger is rampant.