Civil Defense says other bodies remain under the rubble following the partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from Tal al-Hawa, Shujayea.
The bodies of dozens of Palestinians were recovered in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood after Israeli forces withdrew from parts of Gaza City, Palestinian rescue workers said.
“Gaza civil defense teams advanced to rescue survivors. They found dozens of dead. Most of the dead are families, women and children. Some bodies were eaten by dogs,” Gaza civil defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal said on Friday.
“At least 60 bodies were counted. Some bodies were buried there. Others were taken to nearby hospitals.”
Israeli forces entered the neighborhood this week after ordering civilians to evacuate on Monday.
“Many bodies are still under the rubble. Israeli forces are stationed nearby and rescue efforts are regularly disrupted,” Basal said.
The discovery came after Israeli forces withdrew from the Shujayea neighborhood of Gaza City. On Thursday, Basal said civil defense teams also recovered dozens of bodies from there, adding that the neighborhood had become uninhabitable.
“Documented testimony” was obtained that Israeli forces opened fire on residents in the neighborhood despite being located on designated evacuation routes, he said.
Home to more than a quarter of Gaza’s pre-war residents, Gaza City was largely razed by the end of 2023, but hundreds of thousands of Palestinians returned to their ruined homes before Israel once again ordered them to leave. .
Hamas, the Palestinian group that governs Gaza, accused Israeli forces of “atrocities” and called for international accountability. In a statement, the group accused Israel of committing “heinous abuses” in Gaza City.
“The atrocities revealed after the withdrawal of the terrorist occupation army from Tal al-Hawa, southwest of Gaza City, after days of incursion and intense shelling that affected all aspects of life, are war crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing” , Hamas said.
He called on the UN and the international community to take immediate action to put an end to a “war of extermination” that Israel is waging against the Palestinians.
Ceasefire negotiations ‘stalled’
As Israeli forces intensify attacks in northern Gaza, they also continue to attack areas in the south of the besieged enclave.
In Khan Younis, an Israeli airstrike killed at least four aid workers from the British humanitarian organization Al-Khair Foundation.
They were “targeted at a distribution point where they were preparing to distribute aid in Khan Younis,” said Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from Deir el-Balah.
“The Al-Khair Foundation has been working in the Gaza Strip since day one, trying to provide people with food assistance and many other goods, and today we lost four more humanitarian workers,” Khoudary said.
This is not the first time that Israeli forces have targeted humanitarian workers. In April, seven people working for the US-based NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK) were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza.
At the time, the Israeli military said the attack on the WCK team’s convoy was a “serious mistake” and pledged to protect humanitarian workers.
Mediators are still trying to reach a ceasefire agreement that would release Israeli captives in exchange for Palestinians held by Israel.
On Friday, a senior Hamas official blamed Israel for its failure to build on the momentum created when the group abandoned a key demand in the U.S. ceasefire offer drawn up a week ago to pave the way for a deal.
“Israel did not give a clear position on Hamas’ proposal,” the official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters news agency, accusing Israel of “delaying and wasting time.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that he remains committed to the Gaza ceasefire framework and accused Hamas of making demands that contradict him, without saying what those demands were.
Two Egyptian sources said on Thursday that talks had progressed but that security arrangements and ceasefire guarantees were still being worked out.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
