Widespread destruction caused by the ongoing Israeli raid on the Gaza Strip (Al Jazeera)

Al Jazeera's correspondent reported that there were martyrs and wounded in Israeli bombing of homes in Rafah and the Sabra neighborhood in Gaza, while the Israeli occupation forces continued to destroy municipal equipment in the northern Gaza Strip.

Al Jazeera's correspondent said that 3 Palestinians were martyred in an Israeli bombing on the house of the Kali family in the Al-Sabra neighborhood in Gaza City.

The correspondent confirmed that Israeli occupation aircraft launched violent raids on the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City, coinciding with the engineering units of the occupation army blowing up a number of homes in the neighborhood.

He added that an Israeli bombing targeted a house belonging to the Qashqash family in the Al-Shaima area in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, leaving a number of martyrs and injured, stressing that the bombing resulted in the burning of a warehouse for medicines and another for electrical appliances, and led to a large fire breaking out in the targeted place.

In Rafah in the south, an Al Jazeera correspondent reported that 8 people were killed in an Israeli air strike that targeted a house.

Israeli aircraft also bombed a site near the Egyptian-Palestinian border south of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, and agricultural land in the Brazil neighborhood south of the city.

In turn, the Ministry of Health in Gaza said that during the last 24 hours, the occupation army committed eight massacres against families in the Strip, leaving 92 martyrs and 123 injured.

Destruction of equipment

In a related context, occupation aircraft bombed a number of bulldozers, excavators, and machinery in the garage of the Gaza Municipality headquarters.

An official in the Gaza Municipality said that the occupation forces had destroyed 125 municipal vehicles since the beginning of the war.

He stressed that the city municipality has become unable to provide basic services to citizens as a result of the destruction of these mechanisms and equipment designated for maintaining water and sewage lines, transporting waste, and opening streets.

The Israeli occupation forces also bombed a garage containing a number of vehicles belonging to the municipalities of Beit Lahia and Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, and put them out of service.

These mechanisms are used to open roads, remove rubble, repair some water wells, desalination and sewage plants, and facilitate traffic.

By destroying the remaining heavy machinery, the occupation forces aim to paralyze the work of municipalities and make areas of northern Gaza unlivable.

Demonstration against hunger

In the northern Gaza Strip, hundreds of Palestinians, including children in the northern Gaza Strip, participated in a demonstration that ended with a protest denouncing the continued destructive Israeli war and the prevention of aid.

Participants in the demonstration that took place in the streets of the town of Beit Lahia, north of the Gaza Strip, raised banners reading: “Our wounded and sick are waiting for treatment,” “Hunger threatens the children of Gaza,” and “North Gaza is without food and water.”

The Palestinians chanted slogans denouncing the Israeli aggression and starvation policy in the northern Gaza Strip.

They also appealed to Arab and Islamic countries and international organizations to pressure the occupation to stop the war and bring in food, especially infant formula and treatment for the sick.

On February 16, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) announced that between January 1 and February 12, the Israeli occupation authorities denied access to 51% of the missions planned by partner organizations in the field of humanitarian work to deliver aid and conduct assessments. To the areas north of Wadi Gaza.

The OCHA office explained that more than half of the aid shipments to northern Gaza were prevented from arriving last month, and that there is increasing interference from the Israeli army in how and where aid is delivered.

On November 17, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) announced that the population in the northern Gaza Strip is “on the brink of famine and has no place to go” in light of the ongoing war.

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip, leaving tens of thousands of victims, most of them children and women, according to Palestinian and UN data, which led to Israel appearing before the International Court of Justice on charges of committing genocide.

Source: Al Jazeera + agencies