An Israeli airstrike on a house in Jabalia on Sunday resulted in the death of Mohammad Morsi, the deputy director of the Gaza Civil Emergency Service in the northern areas of the Gaza Strip, along with four members of his family, according to health officials. The Civil Emergency Service stated in a release that Morsi's death brought the total number of its members killed by Israeli fire since October 7 to 83. There was no immediate comment from Israel regarding Morsi's death. Residents reported that Israeli forces had also destroyed several houses in the Zeitoun suburb of Gaza City, located approximately 5 kilometers from Jabalia. Medical teams were unable to respond to urgent calls from residents who claimed to be trapped inside their homes, some of whom were injured.
"We hear constant bombing in Zeitoun, we know they are blowing up houses there, we don't sleep because of the sounds of explosions, the roaring of tanks sounds close and the drones don't stop circling," said a resident of Gaza City, who lives about 1 kilometer away. "The occupation is wiping out Zeitoun, we are afraid for the people trapped in there," he told Reuters via a chat app, declining to be named. Israel and Hamas continued to accuse each other for the failure of mediators, including Qatar, Egypt, and the US, to broker a ceasefire. The US is preparing to present a new proposal, but the chances of a breakthrough seem slim as the differences between the sides' positions remain significant.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, the United Nations, in cooperation with local health authorities, extended by a day a campaign to vaccinate children in the southern Gaza Strip against polio before moving to the north on Monday. The campaign aims to vaccinate 640,000 children in Gaza following the first polio case in about 25 years. Limited pauses in the fighting have enabled the campaign to proceed. UN officials reported progress, having reached more than half of the children requiring the vaccine in the first two stages in the southern and central Gaza Strip. A second round of vaccination will be necessary four weeks after the first.
The recent escalation in the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on October 7 when the Hamas group attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking around 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures. Israel's subsequent offensive on Gaza has resulted in the deaths of more than 40,900 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while also displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, leading to a hunger crisis and allegations of genocide at the World Court, which Israel denies. The Palestinian health ministry does not differentiate between combatants and non-combatants in its casualty reports, but health officials indicate that most of the fatalities have been civilians. Israel, which has lost 340 soldiers in Gaza, claims that at least a third of the Palestinian dead are fighters.
