The Israeli strike of the Gaza apartment building killed 29, say medics

At least 29 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike on a multi-storey residential building in the eastern part of Gaza, a local hospital said.

The Hamas Civil Protection Agency said the military aircraft were directed to the area near the Al-Hawwashi Mosque in the Sherjea neighborhood on Tuesday morning.

It says eight children are among the dead, over 60 people are injured and that rescuers are still looking for two dozen others under the ruins.

The Israeli military said they had hit a “Hamas Senior Terrorist”, which is responsible for planning and attacking the area.

Many steps have been taken to mitigate the harm of civilians, including the use of “precision weapons,” she added.

The military also accused Hamas of breaching international law, deliberately using the civil population as human shields.

A video from Sherjea showed that dust -covered bodies of young children, which refer to the ruins of distracted relatives and rescue workers.

26 -year -old Ayub Salim told the AFP news agency that the area around the apartment building, struck on Tuesday morning, was “overcrowded with tents, displaced people and homes.”

He said he was hit by Multiple Rockets and that “Shrapnel has flew in all directions.”

“Dust and mass destruction filled the whole place, we couldn’t see anything, just the screams and panic of the people,” he added. “It’s a really horrifying slaughter.”

Hamas also said the Israeli military “committed a bloody slaughter”.

Thousands of Sherjea residents fled last week after the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of the neighborhood, saying it was working with force to destroy “terrorist infrastructure”.

Earlier on Tuesday, Hamas Health Ministry in Gaza said at least 33 people had been killed in Israeli attacks in the previous 24 hours.

This brought this in total by the killed, as Israel resumed its air and terrestrial campaign against Hamas on March 18 to 1482.

Another 390,000 people have been displaced in the last three weeks, with two-thirds of the territory now identified by Israeli military as “non-aging” zones or under the evacuation orders, according to the UN.

The UN also warned that food, medicines and fuel supplies have dried up because Israel has prevented the supplies of humanitarian aid for a month to put pressure on Hamas.

On Tuesday, Secretary -General Antonio Guteres condemned the Israeli blockade, stating that it violated international law and opened the “horror floods”.

“Gaza is a murder field and civilians are in an endless contour of death,” he added.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry rejected Guterres’s criticism, saying that “he had not left the facts to obstruct when he spread slander against Israel.”

“There is no shortage of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip – over 25,000 trucks for help entered the Gaza Strip in the 42nd days of the end of fire. Hamas used this help to restore his military machine,” said spokesman Oren Marmontine.

On Monday, the leaders of six UN humanitarian agencies described Israel’s claim that there was enough food for 2.1 million gas population as “away from the reality of the earth”.

They called for the protection of civilians, facilitating the supply of help, the release of hostages held by Hamas, and the renewal of the cessation of fire.

Mediators continue to try to resume the cessation of fire, which began on January 19th and saw Hamas released 33 Israeli hostages – eight dead – and five Thai hostages in exchange for about 1900 Palestinian prisoners and a jump of humanitarian aid entering Gaza.

Israel said it resumed its offensive because of Hamas’ refusal to accept a proposal to extend the first phase of the transaction to end the fire and the release of more than 59 hostages, which he still holds, up to 24 of which are thought to be alive.

Hamas accused Israel of breaking the original agreement under which there would be a second phase in which all other living hostages would be handed over and the war led to a constant end.

The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross -border attack on October 7, 2023, which killed about 1,200 people and 251 were taken hostage.

Since then, more than 50 840 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the territory.