At least 70 Palestinians killed in air strike on refugee camp

At least 70 Palestinians killed in air strike on refugee camp

World

Christians in Bethlehem, Pope Francis have renewed calls for peace in Christmas messages

Follow on
Follow us on Google News

(Web Desk) - At least 70 Palestinians have been killed in an air attack on the al-Maghazi refugee camp, which a Palestinian Health Ministry spokesperson describes as a “massacre”.

Christians in Bethlehem as well as Pope Francis have renewed calls for peace in Christmas messages.

Palestinian artist Rana Bishara and sculptor Sana Farah Bishara have created an artwork showing a baby Jesus in an incubator in Bethlehem.

The bronze statue is lying on a red and white keffiyeh inside an illuminated incubator outside the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank.

You can read more about two of the premature babies born in Gaza here.

Israeli forces arrested at least nine young men, after carrying out a new raid targeting the village of al-Jalama, northeast of Jenin.

According to the Palestinian news agency, Wafa, the Israeli forces also targeted the neighbouring village of Arana, also in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian Health Ministry spokesman Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra said Israeli strikes hit the main roads between the refugee camps in central Gaza, preventing ambulances and civil defence crews from reaching injured people.

A separate statement issued by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society also said that intensive Israeli air raids led to the closure of the main roads between al-Maghazi, al-Bureij, and Nuseirat refugee camps.

Earlier, we reported that at least 70 people have been killed in an Israeli air attack on al-Maghazi refugee camp.

Intense air strikes have also been reported in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, but the number of casualties could not be immediately determined.

Pope Francis has shared a post on X, decrying the “futile logic of war” on the eve of Christmas.

“Tonight, our hearts are in Bethlehem, where the Prince of Peace is once more rejected,” the Pope said.

You can read more about what the Pope said earlier at an evening Mass at St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican here.

Several homes in the al-Maghazi refugee camp have been completely flattened in one of the most densely populated areas of the middle regions of Gaza.

About 70 Palestinians have been reported killed.

Israel, during the last couple of days, and earlier today had adopted a very systematic approach, intensifying its raids in al-Maghazi and other areas, to force people to flee to the south of the Gaza Strip, which has already been overwhelmed with evacuees.

Al-Maghazi is very densely populated, including with evacuees who had received evacuation orders to move from Gaza Wadi and other refugee camps during the initial days of the war.