Live: Israel and Hamas at war | NBC News: Israel bombs ‘safe’ places in Gaza

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NBC News: Israel bombs ‘safe’ places in Gaza

Israel regularly carries out deadly bombings in areas of the Gaza Strip that it has designated as safe. The American news channel NBC News established this after its own investigation.

NBC News reports that at least seven deadly airstrikes took place between January and April in areas of southern Gaza that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) had declared safe. The IDF did this, among other things, by distributing handbills in a neighborhood in the southern city of Rafah on December 18. According to relatives, fifteen family members were killed in an airstrike on January 9. NBC was on site shortly after the air raid.

About a month later, on February 12, an attack hit the Shaboura refugee camp, which was also identified as a safe zone on an IDF leaflet. An NBC News crew filmed dozens of dead bodies, including some women and children, in the aftermath of the Rafah bombing.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told a news conference last November that Al-Mawasi, a small coastal strip in Khan Younis, would not be attacked. From January, the IDF advised civilians to evacuate there eleven times. Still, several airstrikes took place, NBC says. On January 4, fourteen people, including three children, were killed when their tent was hit.

Israel released an interactive map last December that divides the Gaza Strip into zones that are safe for civilians and others where there is fighting with Hamas. International aid organizations and residents of Gaza call the map confusing and difficult to read. Regular disruptions to the internet connection make it difficult for citizens to consult it. The Israeli government and armed forces say they are doing everything possible to limit civilian deaths.

10:52, Yesterday

Americans start building port for aid to Palestinians

The Americans have started building a temporary port off the coast of the Gaza Strip so that the Palestinians can receive more aid. It involves a platform and a pier. The installation is scheduled to be completed in early May, according to the US Defense Department.

The Pentagon previously reported that construction could take 60 days. About a thousand American troops would be deployed. President Joe Biden wants to provide more humanitarian aid to the suffering Palestinian population. He announced the measure in early March, when Israel stopped truck deliveries.

The American military will not operate on Gazan soil.

10:25, Yesterday

Media: Israel would accept release of fewer hostages

According to media reports, Israel is willing to abandon Hamas’ original demand for the release of 40 hostages in exchange for a temporary ceasefire. Israeli media reported on Thursday that Israel is willing to accept the release of 20 hostages as long as they are women, men over 50 and seriously ill.

The War Cabinet has instructed the Israeli team of negotiators to discuss this with an Egyptian delegation arriving in Tel Aviv on Friday, Israeli media reports said.

The Times of Israel reports that Israel is prepared to do this after Hamas rejected an earlier proposal based on the release of forty hostages. Hamas claimed it does not have that many hostages in those categories still alive.

A senior Israeli official has denied that 20 hostages were involved. According to the official, this concerns 33 people, the number of women, elderly and sick people still being held in Gaza. According to Hamas, that number is closer to twenty The Times of Israel.

10:24, Yesterday

Israel says it has attacked forty Hezbollah targets

The Israeli army says it has attacked forty Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon with fighter planes and artillery. These are targets in the region of the village of Ayta al Shaab, which is located one kilometer from the Israeli border.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said earlier that half of Hezbollah’s commanders in southern Lebanon have been killed and the other half are in hiding or moving away.