GAZA CITY(National Times)- Heavy Israeli bombardment killed five people in Gaza City on Tuesday after a secret operation by special forces to seize a “senior Hamas figure” was “exposed”.
Eyewitnesses reported around a dozen strikes in western Gaza City, where the local civil defence agency said five people were killed, including three children.
Ismail al Thawabta, head of Hamas’s media office, said on X that Palestinians were able to detect a secret Israeli operation, prompting Israel to conduct heavy air strikes to protect the squad.
A security source in Gaza said the Israeli mission against a prominent Hamas figure was thwarted and that special forces withdrew “on motorcycles under Israeli cover”.
WFP says cuts in funding would force it to trim the number of aid recipients in occupied West Bank by half
The forces included an Israeli-allied militia inside Gaza, he added.
Television footage showed the bodies of two children wrapped in shrouds being carried through the streets, where the mangled wreckage of a vehicle lay.
“A jeep stopped in the middle of the street and started firing indiscriminately left and right. It carried on firing at us like rain for more than 15 minutes,” Wafika al Helou said, describing a “terrifying and unbearable” scene.
Another eyewitness, Mutaz Abu Asr, spoke of gunfire and drones, describing more than five strikes in less than three minutes.
Speaking on the Israeli side of the Gaza border, Defence Minister Israel Katz announced, “a senior Hamas fighter was arrested”, without naming the person.
The outspoken minister said that due to Israeli strikes since the Oct 7, 2023, raid, nearly 70 per cent of Gaza has been destroyed and is under Israeli military control “with no residents, no tunnels and no houses”.
Another Palestinian security source said while the Israeli operation was foiled, a security official who was present at the scene had been abducted.
The Israeli military said it struck “several targets in Gaza Strip in order to remove threats to the security forces”, giving no further information except that there were no injuries among Israeli troops.
Separately, in central Gaza Strip, Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al Balah reported that Israeli fire killed two other people, including a girl.
Funding cuts
The United Nations food agency warned on Tuesday that funding cuts were forcing it to slash the number of aid recipients in occupied West Bank in half, warning of dire consequences.
The World Food Programme (WFP) said that from this month it would be reducing the number of people it reaches with food aid in the Palestinian territory from 400,000 to 200,000.
“The WFP is being forced to reduce the number of people we assist in West Bank by half,” Shaun Hughes, the agency’s representative in Palestinian territories, told reporters in Geneva.
“This is happening as the food needs in West Bank are more than double what they were two years ago,” he warned, speaking from London.
He pointed out that food insecurity had not traditionally been a major problem in Israeli-occupied West Bank.
But he added that since Oct 2023, “intensified settler violence, prolonged and escalating Israeli military operations, severe movement restrictions, demolitions and widespread displacement have eroded Palestinian livelihoods and contributed to increased food insecurity”. The WFP said that its latest quarterly food security analysis found 76 per cent of households in occupied West Bank had experienced a significant decline in income, with many families forced to sell assets and reduce the number and quality of their meals to survive.
The analysis found that one-third of families in the occupied territory could not afford a nutritious diet due to the rapidly deteriorating economy, the agency said, adding that those living in rural areas and in the south were the most affected.
“Families who were once thriving and earning a living from their land are now unable to afford enough food,” Hughes said.
Health hazards soaring
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that approaching rainy season risks worsening a dire public health crisis in Gaza, where most people live in overcrowded tent camps amid rubble and overflowing sewage.
The WHO said in a statement there had already been a clear deterioration in the quality of water reaching the population in recent months.
“Whilst we fail to provide people with the minimum quantities of water, water quality and water contamination remains a major issue,” said Reinhilde Van de Weerdt, the WHO’s representative in the Palestinian territories.
