‘Torn up bodies’: Israel intensifies bombing campaign in Gaza

Israeli attacks kill dozens, including local journalist, as Palestinian death toll in besieged territory nears 39,000.

The Israeli military has continued its relentless bombardment of Gaza with strikes hitting the southern, central and northern parts of the territory.

The Palestinian Civil Defence said on Saturday that its crews retrieved the bodies of 12 people who were killed in separate Israeli attacks on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. The Israeli army had bombed a residential tower in the area.

The Civil Defence also documented the killing of six Palestinians in the neighbouring Bureij camp, while 10 others were killed in Gaza City and other areas north of the territory.

Israel also bombed a commercial building housing displaced people east of Khan Younis late on Saturday, according to local sources. The Civil Defence said the attack killed at least six people, with others still missing under the rubble.

The Wafa news agency also reported that one person was killed and several others were injured in an Israeli air attack in Rafah in southern Gaza.

Israeli shelling of Jabalia in northern Gaza killed local journalist Muhammad Abu Jasser along with his wife and two children.

“We were sleeping in the house safely. There was no armed presence. All of a sudden, a missile fell on us,” Abu Jasser’s cousin told Al Jazeera Arabic.

“Torn up bodies were strewn outside – an ugly scene. Little kids, what have they done to be killed like that?”

Gaza’s Government Media Office said that 161 Palestinian journalists in Gaza have been killed since the start of the war.

Early on Saturday, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said that Israeli forces had killed 37 people over the previous 24 hours, bringing the Palestinian death toll from the war to 38,919.

Israel has imposed a suffocating blockade on Gaza, sparking a hunger crisis in the territory. Health advocates have also warned of the spread of diseases because of sewage spills around displaced people’s encampments.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Interior warned people against moving from north to south in the territory, accusing Israel of using “psychological pressure on citizens” to further displace Palestinians.

“We warn citizens against the lies and deceit of the occupation. We salute the citizens’ steadfastness in their homes,” the ministry said in a statement.

“The occupation practises the most horrific forms of torture and abuse against the displaced, away from the cameras, executing dozens of them and leaving the injured to bleed to death.”

Israel has intensified its attacks on Gaza in recent weeks amid talks to reach a ceasefire deal which would see the release of Israeli captives held by Hamas and other Palestinian groups.

Hamas accused Israel of stepping up its bombing campaign in the past two days in response to the International Court of Justice, which ruled on Friday that the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories is illegal.

“The United Nations must act quickly to stop this show of Zionist crimes and terrorism that is happening with the direct support of the American administration,” the Palestinian group said in a statement.

Izzat al-Rishq, a member of the Palestinian group’s political bureau, stressed later on Saturday that Israel’s “crimes” will not stop without a “price to pay and mounting pressure”.

Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, and allied armed groups claimed several attacks against Israeli forces on Thursday including an ambush on a tank in Rafah.