GAZA, PALESTINE
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says an Israeli raid on a refugee camp - which led to the rescue of four hostages - killed 274 people, including children and other civilians.
On Saturday Israel's
forces, backed by air strikes, fought intense gun battles with Hamas in and
around the Nuseirat refugee camp, freeing the captives.
Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir
Jan, 22, Andrei Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41, who were abducted from the Nova
music festival on 7 October have been returned to Israel.
The Israeli military has
estimated that fewer than 100 people died in the operation.
But the latest figures from
the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza would, if confirmed, make it one of the
deadliest days of the conflict so far.
People living in the
densely-populated area have described the terror of coming under intense
bombardment and heavy gunfire.
One man, Abdel Salam Darwish,
told the BBC he was in a market buying vegetables when he heard fighter jets
from above and the sound of gunfire.
"Afterwards, people's
bodies were in pieces, scattered in the streets, and blood stained the
walls," he said.
The return of the hostages to
their families has sparked celebration in Israel and world leaders, including
US President Joe Biden, have welcomed the news of their release.
But there has been mounting
criticism of the deadly cost of the operation inside Gaza, with European Union
foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell saying he condemned it "in the
strongest terms".
"Reports from Gaza of
another massacre of civilians are appalling," he wrote on X.
An Israeli minister said that instead of condemning Hamas for hiding behind civilians, the EU had condemned Israel for saving its citizens.
Images from the Nuseirat
refugee camp area show intense bombardment and people mourning the dead.
Two hospitals in Gaza, al-Aqsa
hospital and al-Awda hospital, said they had counted 70 bodies between them.
The Hamas-run health ministry
released names of 86 people out of the 274 Palestinians it says were killed
during the two-hour operation.
Previously, Israel's military
spokesman Daniel Hagari estimated there were fewer than 100 casualties in what
was a "high-risk, complex mission" based on "precise
intelligence".
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant
said special forces operated "under heavy fire" when rescuing the
hostages. One special forces officer was wounded and later died in hospital.
Victims are said to still be
buried under the rubble of buildings following strikes on Saturday
Videos from Gaza taken in the
aftermath of the raid show scenes of carnage.
Footage from the al-Aqsa
hospital shows numerous people with severe injuries laying on the ground,
leaving barely any space on the blood-stained floor for doctors to move between
patients.
Other video shows a frequent
stream of new cases being driven in by car and ambulance and carried into the
building.
The director of the al-Awda
Hospital in Nuseirat told BBC Arabic the number of dead coming to the hospital
increased throughout Saturday.
Dr Marwan Abu Nasser also
spoke about the lack of a morgue in the hospital to accommodate the bodies of
those killed who had been taken to the hospital.
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