A BRIT volunteer is among five people killed in an Israeli strike, a Hamas-run office has claimed.
The UK national was said to have died alongside a Palestinian, a Polish and an Australian.
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The identity of the fifth person is unknown.
SkyNews reports the volunteers were employees from the World Central Kitchen.
It’s a charity devoted to providing meals in the wake of natural disasters.
The World Central Kitchen is yet to comment on the claims.
It’s understood the strike hit Deir Al-Balah, in central Gaza yesterday, while the group were travelling in a car.
In a statement shortly after the announcement from the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, the IDF said: “Following the reports regarding the World Central Kitchen personnel in Gaza today, the IDF is conducting a thorough review at the highest levels to understand the circumstances of this tragic incident.
“The IDF makes extensive efforts to enable the safe delivery of humanitarian aid, and has been working closely with World Central Kitchen in their vital efforts to provide food and humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.”
It comes just hours after the devastating aftermath of a two-week raid on Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital was revealed for the first time.
Israel Defence troops have today withdrawn from the complex – leaving a trail of rotting corpses and bombed-out buildings behind them.
Israel claimed to have killed around 200 militants and detained hundreds more after the stint of close-quarters fighting.
Unverfied footage on social media showed corpses, some covered in dirty blankets, scattered around the charred remains of the hospital.
It showed ground heavily ploughed up, and numerous buildings outside the facility flattened or burned down.
Samir Basel, 43, speaking to Reuters via a chat app as he toured Al Shifa, said: “I haven’t stopped crying since I arrived here, horrible massacres were committed by the occupation here.”
“The place is destroyed, buildings have been burnt and destroyed. This place needs to be rebuilt – there is no Shifa hospital anymore.”
It showed heavily ploughed ground and numerous buildings outside the facility had been flattened or burned down.
Following the reports regarding the World Central Kitchen personnel in Gaza today, the IDF is conducting a thorough review at the highest levels to understand the circumstances of this tragic incident.
IDF spokesperson
With access to Gaza’s biggest hospital – previously dubbed “the beating heart” of Hamas – severely restricted, the Israeli and Palestinian version of events differ sharply.
Palestinian officials called the raid on a hospital a war crime, while Israeli officials said special forces units targeted a Hamas stronghold that was deliberately located among vulnerable civilians.
Thousands of Palestinians – 6,200 according to the Israeli military – had been sheltering in the complex, one of few locations in the north of Gaza with some access to electricity and water.
Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run Gaza media office, said Israeli forces had killed 400 Palestinians in and around the hospital including a woman doctor and her son, also a doctor, and put the facility out of action.
He said: “They bulldozed the courtyards, burying dozens of bodies of martyrs in the rubble, turning the place into a mass graveyard.
“This is a crime against humanity.”
Israel ‘offers to release 800 Palestinian prisoners’
By NEHA DILLON
ISRAEL is considering releasing up to 800 Palestinian prisoners in return for 40 of the hostages snatched by Hamas on October 7.
Dozens of Palestinian criminals who could be freed are serving life sentences for terrorist attacks, according to Israeli media outlets.
After describing any exchange as “unrealistic” a few weeks prior, it is thought Israeli negotiators in Qatar have signed off on an American compromise.
It is still unclear exactly how many prisoners will be released by Israel, with some Israeli media outlets saying it is between 700 and 800.
Alongside the prisoner exchange, it is thought that Israel is now willing to discuss allowing Palestinian refugees to return to the northern half of the Gaza Strip.
A long list of currently unspecified conditions is suspected to be attached to civilians returning to the north of the Strip.
For example, it is unlikely that men will be allowed to return.
Israel has also maintained that it will not, under any circumstances, be agreeing to any deal that sees the withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza.
The leaders of Hamas are expected to take up to three days to accept or alter the proposal.
Previous talks between Hamas and Israel have failed to materialise due to Israel’s staunch stance on continuing the war to eradicate Hamas.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri has previously said that any deal they accept should include conditions for an end to the war.
Abu Zuhri said: “What America and the Occupation (Israel) want is to regain the captives without a commitment to end the aggression, which means the resumption of war, killing and destruction, and we can’t accept that.”
