Four people, including a photojournalist and three paramedics, were killed late Monday by an Israeli artillery shell that targeted them during a rescue operation in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood, east of Gaza City.
A medical crew source told Al Manassa that they received an emergency call about an apartment that had been bombed by Israeli forces. As the paramedics responded, joined by a photojournalist, Israeli artillery targeted the same spot again, killing paramedics Raed Al-Attar, Hussein Muhaysin and Bara' Afaneh, along with photojournalist Moamen Abu Al-Auf.
Al-Auf worked with local media outlets providing coverage for satellite channels, and his death brings the total number of journalists killed since the start of the war on Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, to 227.
“The repeated shelling and the constant presence of drones prevented us from retrieving the bodies for hours,” the source said. “We were trapped for more than three hours before we managed to withdraw at dawn.”
A journalist on the scene confirmed to Al Manassa that Israeli drones fired at anyone approaching the site, delaying the rescue operation until early Tuesday.
In Jabalia, northern Gaza, Israeli airstrikes targeted seven homes early Tuesday on Old Gaza Street. Paramedic teams recovered several victims, but others remained trapped under the rubble, according to a journalist source.
“It’s a very dangerous scene,” an eyewitness told Al Manassa. “The area is classified as a military zone, and the drones are firing on passersby, making it difficult for rescue teams to move.”
A medical source at Al-Shifa Hospital reported that seven bodies had been brought in, most of them unidentified, following the Jabalia strikes.
In Khan Younis, Israeli airstrikes on tents housing displaced families killed two women and injured at least 10 others, including a child, according to medical sources.
In a separate incident, artillery and drone strikes targeted hundreds of civilians waiting for aid in Netzarim, killing and wounding dozens, according to eyewitnesses and medics. More than 35 injuries and three deaths were confirmed at Al-Awda Hospital.
On March 18, the Israeli occupation army resumed its assault on the Gaza Strip, which originally began on Oct. 7, 2023. A ceasefire agreement initiated on Jan. 19 collapsed in March after Israel refused to fully implement its terms, including a complete troop withdrawal and prisoner exchange with Hamas.
In a statement late Monday, the Gaza government media office accused the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” (GHF) of causing the deaths of 130 civilians and injuring 1,000 others since it began operations at four aid distribution points—three in Rafah and one in Netzarim.
The statement described the foundation as “an arm of the Israeli occupation that intentionally kills starving civilians as they try to access humanitarian aid,” adding that Israel bears primary responsibility for the humanitarian crisis by blocking more than 55,000 aid trucks over the past 100 days and closing crossings to international relief.
In a separate development, hundreds of residents in northern Gaza seized more than 50 trucks loaded with flour as they passed through the Netzarim corridor towards Al-Rasheed Street. An eyewitness told Al Manassa that desperate residents took the flour themselves, unable to afford the black-market price of up to 90 shekels ($25) per kilogram.
“The dire humanitarian situation forced people to take these steps after they failed to buy flour or obtain it from international organizations,” the witness said.
The GHF began distributing aid to Gaza at the end of May, after a nearly three-month siege by the Israeli army that blocked aid entry as part of a strategy to starve the population.
The foundation has faced harsh criticism from humanitarian groups, including the UN, for its perceived lack of impartiality in aid distribution. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are at risk of famine, aid organizations warn.
