Israeli strikes in Gaza City kill at least 38, civil defense force says

On Jun 22, 2024

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Israeli airstrikes on four neighborhoods in Gaza City killed at least 38 people Saturday, the Gaza civil defense force said, adding that rescue crews were continuing to search for more dead and wounded in the rubble.

The bombardment hit residential buildings in the city’s north, south, east and west, with significant damage and a massive crater reported in the densely built Shati refugee camp in western Gaza City. In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces said its fighter jets “struck two Hamas military infrastructure sites in the area of Gaza City,” without elaborating. The Gaza civil defense force did not say if combatants were among the dead.

Video from Shati verified by Storyful showed entire blocks destroyed by the strike, with residents covered in dust from the debris while searching for survivors.

Israeli strikes killed at least 38 people in Gaza on June 22, the Gaza civil defense force said. IDF said it struck Hamas infrastructure in the city. (Video: The Washington Post)

“People were sitting, and suddenly, missiles destroyed a group of houses and burned the entire area,” said Yousri al-Ghoul, 43, who lives in Shati.

“Most residents of the camp were affected because the shrapnel flew across the squares and residential blocks,” he said in a phone interview. “People were carrying others on their backs. There’s still people under the rubble.”

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The multiple, heavy strikes were somewhat unusual for Gaza City, where some of the major battles between Israel and Hamas have died down. Still, the IDF carries out regular strikes in the city, including one on Friday that killed five municipal workers, according to local authorities.

On Friday, at least 22 people were killed and 45 injured after “heavy-calibre projectiles” landed near an office of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the Mawasi area of Rafah.

The strike “damaged the structure of the ICRC office, which is surrounded by hundreds of displaced civilians living in tents, including many of our Palestinian colleagues,” the humanitarian group wrote in a statement Friday.

“Firing so dangerously close to humanitarian structures puts the lives of civilians and Red Cross staff at risk,” the organization said, adding that the “incident caused a mass casualty influx at the nearby Red Cross Field Hospital.”

The Israeli military said that it was “examining the incident,” but that an initial inquiry found “there was no direct attack carried out by the IDF against a Red Cross facility.”

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, called for an independent investigation into the shelling in a statement on X, formerly Twitter.

“An independent investigation is needed and those responsible must be held accountable,” he wrote. “Protection of civilians is an obligation under [the] Geneva Conventions.”

On Saturday night in Tel Aviv, massive crowds of demonstrators turned out to condemn the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, called for early elections and demand Israel reach a cease-fire deal with Hamas to free the remaining hostages held captive in Gaza.

At the rally, prominent…