Palestinians inspect the damage at the site of an Israeli strike on a tent camp sheltering displaced people, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on May 18, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Reuters
Israel launched “extensive” new ground operations in the Gaza Strip while airstrikes in a new offensive killed at least 103 people, including dozens of children, overnight and into Sunday, hospitals and medics said — and forced northern Gaza’s main hospital to close.
Israel on Saturday (May 17, 2025) launched the offensive — the largest since it shattered a ceasefire in March — with the aims of seizing territory and displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
Israel is pressuring Hamas to agree to a temporary ceasefire, one that would free hostages from Gaza, but would not necessarily end the war. Hamas says it wants a full withdrawal of Israeli forces and a pathway to ending the war as part of any deal.
Israel’s military, which recently called up tens of thousands of reservists, said that the ground operations are throughout the north and south of the Palestinian territory.
The Nasser hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis said it received the bodies of 20 people who were killed in multiple overnight airstrikes that hit houses and tents sheltering displaced families in the Muwasi area.
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In northern Gaza, at least 36 people were killed in multiple strikes, according to first responders from the health ministry and the civil defense.
The dead included nine people from a single family who were killed when an airstrike hit their house in the built-up Jabaliya refugee camp, according to the health ministry’s emergency services.
Another strike hit the house of the Berawi family, also in Jabaliya, killing 10 people including seven children and a woman, according to the civil defense, which operates under the Hamas-run government. Among the dead were two parents and their three children and a father and his four children, it said.
Closure of hospital
Health officials said that fighting around the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza and an Israeli military “siege” prompted it to shut down.
The hospital was the main medical facility in the territory’s war-wrecked north, after northern Gaza’s previous main hospital, Kamal Adwan, was forced to stop serving Palestinians last year because of Israeli strikes, as was a second facility, Beit Hanoun Hospital. The Israeli military also had no immediate comment on operations at the hospital.
Israel has repeatedly targeted hospitals in its war against Hamas, pointing to what it says are the group’s activities in and around the facilities. Human rights groups and U.N.-backed experts have accused Israel of systematically destroying Gaza’s health care system.
Published – May 18, 2025 12:53 pm IST
