The Hamas-run health sector in Gaza has reported that at least 274 Palestinians have lost their lives in the Israeli aerial and terrestrial raid carried out to rescue four hostages who were in Hamas’s captivity. Furthermore, the operation resulted in approximately 700 individuals suffering injuries. According to a statement from the ministry, the Israeli military’s aggressive actions in the Gaza Strip have caused the deaths of a minimum of 37,084 Palestinians and left over 84,494 wounded since 7th October. The Israeli armed forces included that they had struck “perceived threats to their units in the vicinity” and that a specific forces officer lost his life in the course of the rescue mission.
Eyewitnesses narrated accounts of mayhem and bloodshed subsequent to the hostage rescue operation in Gaza executed by Israel on Saturday. Abdel Salam Darwish, a local, informed the BBC that he was at a vegetable market when he heard fighter jets and gunfire. He described a blood-soaked scene of dismembered bodies scattered on the roads and blood smeared walls.
An Al-Aqsa Hospital doctor, Jamal Salha, spoke to Al Jazeera about the hospital being filled to capacity with trauma patients, including young children, who sustained serious injuries during Israel’s strike on the refugee camp in Nuseirat on the same day. He mentioned that their neurosurgical ward received over 20 patients with grave head injuries, including a child who had to undergo surgery and another child wounded by a piece of shrapnel. The latter was found alone, implying his family may have been killed, as per Salha.
While Israelis were commending the successful release of the four hostages, the EU was expressing its deep condemnation of what it referred to as “horrifying” reports of a massacre on Palestinian civilians. Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, remarked: “These dreadful accounts from Gaza of another mass killing of civilians are horrifying. We denounce this in the sternest terms. This indiscriminate killing absolutely needs to halt forthwith.” – The Guardian