Israeli attacks on Gaza kill 22 people, officials say, while truck ramming near Tel Aviv hurts dozens

RAMAT HASHARON, Israel — Israeli attacks on northern Gaza have killed at least 22 people, mostly women and children, Palestinian officials said Sunday, as Israel’s offensive in the hard-hit and isolated north has led. entered a third week and aid groups described a humanitarian catastrophe. Israel said it was targeting militants.

In another development, a truck rammed a bus stop near the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, injuring 35 people, according to first responders. Israeli police described it as an attack and said the attacker was an Arab citizen of Israel. The ramming took place near the headquarters of Israel’s Mossad spy agency.

Iran’s supreme leader, meanwhile, said Israeli attacks on the country over the weekend “should not be exaggerated or downplayed” while stopping short of calling for retaliation, suggesting Iran is carefully weighing its response to the attack.

On Saturday, Israeli warplanes attacked military targets in Iran in response to an Iranian ballistic missile attack earlier this month.

The gunfight has raised fears of an all-out regional war pitting Israel and the United States against Iran and its militant allies, including Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group. where Israel launched a ground invasion earlier this month after nearly a year of lower-level conflict.

The Israeli army said on Sunday that four soldiers, including a military rabbi, were killed in fighting in southern Lebanon, without giving details of the circumstances. Five other staff were said to have been seriously injured. An explosive drone and a projectile fired from Lebanon injured five people in Israel on Sunday, authorities said.

Netanyahu says attacks on Iran have achieved Israel’s objectives

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that the attacks had “severely damaged” Iran and achieved all of Israel’s objectives.

“The air force struck throughout Iran. We have seriously damaged Iran’s defense capabilities and its ability to produce missiles aimed at us,” Netanyahu said in his first public comments on the attacks.

Satellite images showed damage to two secret Iranian military basesOne was related to work on nuclear weapons that Western intelligence agencies and nuclear inspectors say was halted in 2003, and another was related to Iran’s ballistic missile program.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s 85-year-old supreme leader, said: “It is up to the authorities to determine how to transfer the power and will of the Iranian people to the Israeli regime and to take actions that will protect the interests of serving this country and country.”

Khamenei would make a final decision on how Iran responds.

Dozens have been injured in an apparent truck attack in Israel

In the city of Ramat Hasharon, northeast of Tel Aviv, the truck crashed into a bus at a stop as Israelis returned to work after a week’s holiday, leaving some people trapped under the vehicles. The bus stop is not only close to Mossad headquarters and a military base, but also close to a central highway interchange.

Israeli rescue service Magen David Adom said six of the injured were in serious condition.

Asi Aharoni, a spokesman for the Israeli police, told reporters that the attacker had been “neutralized,” without saying whether the attacker was dead.

Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group praised the suspected attack but did not claim it.

Palestinians have committed numerous stabbing, shooting and car-ramming attacks over the years. Tensions have soared since the outbreak of war in Gaza, as Israel has carried out regular military attacks on the occupied West Bank that have caused hundreds of deaths. Most appear to be militants killed in firefights with Israeli forces, but Palestinians taking part in violent protests and civilian bystanders have also been killed.

The military said another attack took place near a checkpoint in the West Bank, with a suspected man trying to ram soldiers with his vehicle and then stabbing them before being killed. No soldiers were injured, the report said.

Red Cross speaks of ‘horrific conditions’ in northern Gaza

The Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency department said 11 women and two children were among the 22 people killed in attacks late Saturday on several homes and buildings in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. It said another 15 people were injured and the death toll could rise. It contained the names of the dead, most of whom came from three families.

The Israeli army said it carried out a precision strike on militants in a structure in Beit Lahiya and took steps to prevent harm to civilians. It disputed what it claimed were “media published figures”, without elaborating or providing evidence on its own behalf.

Israel has been waging a major air and ground offensive in northern Gaza since October 6, with Hamas militants said to have regrouped there. Hundreds of people have been killed and tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled to Gaza City the latest wave of displacement during the years of war.

Aid groups have warned of a catastrophic situation in northern Gaza, which was the first target of Israel’s ground offensive and has already suffered. the heaviest destruction of the war. Israel has severely limited access to basic humanitarian assistance In recent weeks, the north’s three remaining hospitals – one of which was raided this weekend – say they have been overwhelmed by waves of injured people.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Saturday that continued Israeli evacuation orders and restrictions on the access of essential supplies to the north had left the civilian population in “horrendous conditions”.

“Many civilians are currently unable to move, trapped by fighting, destruction or physical constraints, and now lack access to even basic medical care,” the report said.

The war began when Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s border wall and stormed into southern Israel in a surprise attack on October 7, 2023. They killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped about 250 people. There are still about a hundred hostages in Gazaabout a third of whom are believed to be dead.

More than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive, according to the local health ministry. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and fighters in the count, but says more than half of the dead were women and children. Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

The offensive has devastated much of the impoverished coastal area and displaced around 90% of its 2.3 million residents, often several times. Hundreds of thousands of people have gathered in squalid tent camps along the coast, and aid groups say hunger is rampant.