Two dead and injured in an Israeli artillery shelling on southern Gaza

Two Palestinians were killed, and others were injured, on Friday, as a result of Israeli artillery shelling in the southern Gaza Strip.

The independent Palestinian news agency Shehab reported, “Two martyrs and more than 10 wounded, most of them children, arrived at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, as a result of occupation artillery shelling that targeted the vicinity of Al-Qastal Towers, east of Deir Al-Balah.”

More than a year after the ceasefire that ended major combat operations in Gaza, the entire population of the Strip, numbering more than two million Palestinians, lives in about a third of the area of ​​​​the small enclave, most of them in temporary tents and demolished buildings.

On Thursday, Doctors Without Borders condemned an Israeli air strike on a hospital in Gaza that killed 6 people, according to the German News Agency. The organization said it was “shocked and extremely angry” by the attack that occurred during the night, and resulted in the injury of 52 others. She continued: “It is unconscionable for patients and medical staff to be killed and injured again inside a hospital, which is a place where lives should be saved, not lost.” Doctors Without Borders said that Nasser Medical Hospital had been subjected to at least 6 air strikes, repeated ground incursions, artillery shelling and gunfire since October 2023.

Israeli forces continue bombings in Zawtar al-Sharqiya, near the Litani River, in conjunction with the bombing of southern towns on various axes, which raises questions about the goals of targeting villages that suffered widespread destruction, and the relationship of the operations to the Israeli deployment sites. Military interpretations of these operations vary between the possibility of destroying facilities that can be used after withdrawal, and the discovery of tunnels and underground structures, while the repeated artillery shelling is linked to precautionary measures to protect the positions of Israeli forces from possible attacks.

These developments come amid the continued establishment of military sites and the construction of new roads inside Lebanese territory, according to data announced by the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL), and in light of the faltering implementation of the framework agreement and continuing questions about the borders of the Israeli security zone and the future of the withdrawal from the south.

On Friday, the Israeli bombing targeted Majdal Zoun and the houses of Al-Siyad in the Tyre district, and Beni Hayyan and Taloussa in the Marjayoun district, in conjunction with a sweep with machine guns. Fire was fired towards the road leading to Al-Mansouri, after the outskirts of Mays Al-Jabal, Atarun and Wadi Al-Saluki were bombed from the Shaqra side shortly after midnight.

Retired Brigadier General Dr. Hisham Jaber considered that the bombings in Zawtar, and the continued targeting of villages, fall within the destruction of facilities and infrastructure that could be used militarily in the future, without excluding Israeli accounts connected to the Litani River. Jaber said, in a statement to Asharq Al-Awsat, that “the villages adjacent to the border were almost completely destroyed, and now the destruction operations have moved inland.”

The military expert, retired Brigadier General Saeed Qazah, suggested that the Zawtar bombings were linked to the search for structures used by Hezbollah. He told Asharq Al-Awsat, “These explosions come within the same context, and the Israelis may have discovered new tunnels in the Zawtar area and are working to blow them up.”

Bilal Erdogan, son of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and head of the Turkish Society for the Propagation of Science, called for strengthening unity and solidarity among the peoples of the region to confront the attacks on Gaza, the West Bank, southern Lebanon and Syria, expressing his hope that the recent developments in Syria will contribute to reconnecting Lebanese, Syrian and Turkish cities, and restoring commercial and economic ties between them. Erdogan's positions came during his visit to the city of Tripoli in northern Lebanon, on Friday, on the second day of his Lebanese tour.