GAZA CITY: Under a recently mediated agreement, medicine deliveries for Israeli prisoners were anticipated in exchange for humanitarian aid, and Tel Aviv increased its airstrikes over the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday.
However, a Hamas representative imposed new requirements for supplying the drugs, demanding that Israel not check the trucks transporting them, almost twenty-four hours after the agreement was made public on Tuesday night.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, violence has also increased since October 7 to a degree not seen since the second Palestinian insurrection, which took place between 2000 and 2005.
A count based on information from both sides indicates that about 350 people have died in the region as a result of settlers’ attacks and Israeli army raids.
Witnesses in the largest city in the southern Gaza Strip reported that throughout Tuesday night, artillery fire and airstrikes were directed towards Khan Yunis.
A spokesman for the health ministry, which announced 81 deaths throughout the Palestinian territory, described the night as “the most difficult and intense in Khan Yunis since the beginning of the war.”
The most recent figures released by the ministry show that at least 24,448 Palestinians—roughly 70% of whom were women, small children, and adolescents—had died as a result of Israeli ground attacks and bombardments.
Around 250 Israelis were taken prisoner by Hamas during the raids on October 7. There are about 130 people left in Gaza.
Israeli society is deeply troubled by the fate of those who remain in captivity, and international calls for a ceasefire have been fueled by the larger humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which is characterized by the threat of starvation and disease.
