Israel strikes southern Gaza as disease stalks residents

Israel kept up its barrage of the Gaza Strip on Thursday (Dec 14) despite intensifying international calls to reduce civilian casualties from its bombardment as a surge in deadly diseases sweeps through displaced residents.

Israel kept up its barrage of the Gaza Strip on Thursday (Dec 14) despite intensifying international calls to reduce civilian casualties from its bombardment as a surge in deadly diseases sweeps through displaced residents.

Israel says its attacks on Gaza are aimed at annihilating Hamas, the group whose fighters stormed across the border fence from Gaza on Oct 7, killing 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, and seizing 240 hostages.

Since then, Israel has laid much of the Palestinian enclave to waste. At least 18,608 people have been killed and 50,594 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza, according to Gaza's health ministry.

The vast majority of the population of 2.3 million has fled their homes, many sleeping rough, leaving them vulnerable to illness.

At Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, where the trauma ward has been overwhelmed with the wounded, sick babies were also crammed several to a bed in the children's ward.