Israeli airstrikes in Gaza kill 60 people, including 22 children, Health
Ministry says
[May 14, 2025]
By WAFAA SHURAFA and MELANIE LIDMAN
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — At least 22 children were killed in
Gaza early Wednesday in a punishing series of Israeli airstrikes across
Gaza, according to local hospitals and health officials.
The strikes killed at least 60 people in total, Gaza's Health Ministry
reported, including almost 50 people around Jabaliya in northern Gaza
and 10 others in the southern city of Khan Younis. The strikes came a
day after Hamas released an Israeli-American hostage in a deal brokered
by the United States, and as President Donald Trump was visiting Saudi
Arabia.
On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there was “no
way” Israel would halt its war in Gaza, dimming hopes for a ceasefire.
The Israeli military refused to comment on the strikes, but had warned
residents of Jabaliya to evacuate late Tuesday night due to militant
infrastructure in the area, including rocket launchers.
In Jabaliya, rescue workers smashed through collapsed concrete slabs
using hand tools, lit only by the light of cellphone cameras, to remove
bodies of some of the children who were killed.
Israel threatens to escalate operations in Gaza
In comments released by Netanyahu’s office Tuesday, the prime minister
said Israeli forces were just days away from a promised escalation of
force and would enter Gaza “with great strength to complete the mission.
... It means destroying Hamas.”
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in a
2023 intrusion into southern Israel. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has
killed over 52,800 Palestinians, many of them women and children,
according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the
dead were combatants or civilians.
Israel’s offensive has obliterated vast swathes of Gaza’s urban
landscape and displaced 90% of the population, often multiple times.
The strikes came amid hopes that Trump's visit to the Middle East could
usher in a ceasefire deal or renewal of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
France condemns Israeli blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza
International food security experts issued a stern warning earlier this
week that the Gaza Strip will likely fall into famine if Israel doesn’t
lift its blockade and stop its military campaign.
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Palestinians inspect the rubble of homes destroyed by Israeli
airstrikes in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip, on Wednesday, May 14,
2025. According to local hospitals, 48 people were killed in the
strikes, including 22 children. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
French President Emmanuel Macron strongly denounced Netanyahu’s
decision to block aid from entering Gaza as “a disgrace” that has
caused a major humanitarian crisis.
“I say it forcefully, what Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is doing
today is unacceptable,” Macron said Tuesday evening on TF1 national
television. “There’s no medicine. We can’t get the wounded out.
Doctors can’t get in. What he’s doing is a disgrace. It’s a
disgrace.”
Macron, who visited injured Palestinians in El Arish hospital in
Egypt last month, called to reopen the Gaza border to humanitarian
convoys. “Then, yes, we must fight to demilitarize Hamas, free the
hostages and build a political solution,” he said.
Nearly half a million Palestinians are facing possible starvation,
living at “catastrophic” levels of hunger, while 1 million others
can barely get enough food, according to findings by the Integrated
Food Security Phase Classification, a leading international
authority on the severity of hunger crises.
Israel has banned all food, shelter, medicine and any other goods
from entering the Palestinian territory for the past 10 weeks, even
as it carries out waves of airstrikes and ground operations.
Gaza’s population of around 2.3 million people relies almost
entirely on outside aid to survive, because Israel’s 19-month-old
military campaign has wiped away most capacity to produce food
inside the territory.
___
Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Fatma
Khaled contributed from Cairo and Sylvie Corbet contributed from
Paris.
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