(19 Mar 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip – 19 March 2025
1. Various of people performing funeral prayers for victims
2. Various of people carrying bodies and placing them in vehicle
3. Various of people climbing into vehicle
4. Various of people sitting near bodies of deceased relatives
5. Various of destruction caused by Israeli airstrike that hit a house in Deir al-Balah
6. Various of people looking toward destruction through hole in a wall in their house
STORYLINE:
Mourners held Muslim funeral prayers on Wednesday for four people killed in an Israeli strike in central Gaza.
The dead are among more than 400 Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday when Israel carried out a wave of heavy strikes.
The four were killed in the city of Deir al-Balah and brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
Their relatives gathered in the hospital’s courtyard where they held funeral prayers.
Then they took the bodies for burial in a nearby cemetery.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the strikes after Hamas refused Israeli demands to free half of the remaining hostages as a precondition for extending the ceasefire.
Israel’s deadliest bombardment of the territory in the 17-month war killed mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
After two months of relative calm during the ceasefire, stunned Palestinians found themselves once again digging loved ones out of rubble and holding funeral prayers over the dead at hospital morgues.
Netanyahu said the attack was "only the beginning" and that Israel would press ahead until it achieves all of its war aims — destroying Hamas and freeing all hostages held by the militant group.
The war erupted when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages.
Most have been released in ceasefires or other deals, with Israeli forces rescuing only eight and recovering dozens of bodies.
The war has killed over 48,500 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and displaced 90% of Gaza’s population. The Health Ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and militants but says over half of the dead have been women and children.
The Israeli military ordered people to evacuate eastern Gaza and head toward the center of the territory, indicating that Israel could soon launch renewed ground operations.
The new campaign comes as aid groups warn supplies are running out two weeks after Israel cut off all food, medicine, fuel and other goods to Gaza’s 2 million Palestinians.
AP video shot by Abdel Kareem Hana
Production: Wafaa Shurafa
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