▲ Destruction at Gaza City’s seaport, image taken on 22 September.Afp Photo
AP, Europa Press and AFP
The newspaper La Jornada
Wednesday, September 25, 2024, p. 24
Deir al-Balah. At least 11 Palestinians were killed in several bombings carried out yesterday by Israel against the Gaza Strip, in the context of the offensive unleashed against the enclave following the attacks carried out on October 7 by Hamas and other Palestinian factions.
Medical sources cited by the Palestinian news agency Wafa said at least six people were killed in a bombing of several homes in the southern city of Khan Yunis, while two Palestinians were killed in a drone attack in Rafah, also in the south.
Three other people, including two children, were killed in a bombing attack on a group of people gathered in a roundabout in the Al Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, but Israel has not commented on the latest attacks.
The Israeli army launched an offensive against Gaza following the attacks, which left nearly 1,200 dead and some 250 kidnapped.
Since then, Gazan authorities have reported more than 41,460 Palestinians killed in the enclave, in addition to more than 700 killed by Israeli security forces and in attacks by settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since that date.
At least 60 percent of buildings in the Palestinian enclave have been destroyed, according to an analysis of satellite images by US researchers Corey Scher and Jamon van den Hoek, meaning nearly 169,000 buildings have been affected as of September 13, 2024.
The unprecedented destruction caused by the deadliest war in Gaza’s history makes it difficult to imagine a future reconstruction.
The most significant destruction occurred in the first two to three months of the conflict.
Since the Hamas attack in southern Israel, the Israeli army has been relentlessly bombing this small, densely populated territory of 365 square kilometers.
In the north, in Gaza City, which had 600,000 inhabitants before the war, almost three-quarters of the buildings (73.9 percent) were hit.
In Rafah, in the far south touching the Egyptian border, almost half of the buildings (46.3 percent) are damaged or destroyed. In April, before Israeli troops entered the city in early May, the level of destruction was 33.9 percent.
In the areas bordering Israel, the devastation is almost total, Amnesty International said. According to the organization, in 58 square kilometers of the border, more than 90 percent of the buildings were destroyed. destroyed or severely damaged between October 2023 and May 2024.
As of August 20, only 16 of the 36 hospitals in the territory were operational. partiallysaid the World Health Organization.
Regarding places of worship, combining data from the United Nations Satellite Centre and OpenStreetMap, it is inferred that 70 percent of mosques were damaged or destroyed.
As of July 6, the United Nations Children’s Fund estimates that at least 477 schools have been damaged, representing almost 85 percent of the 564 educational centers in the country. Of these, 133 were damaged and 344 received direct impacts.
