Relentless Israeli strikes kill 30 Gazans

Gaza rescuers said Israeli strikes in Gaza on Sunday left at least 30 people dead, including children and women. Besides, the relentless Israeli attacks have crippled the infrastructure in the North Gaza and rendered the residents without food, water and medicines.

"Since dawn, at least 17 citizens have been martyred in Israeli attacks on homes and citizens in the northern Gaza Strip," said Gaza's civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal.

Among the dead were six in the town of Beit Lahia and four in Jabalia. They included women and children, he said.

Muhammad Salha, director of Al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia, described the situation as "horrific".

He said in a statement the only general surgeon left in northern Gaza was working at his hospital, where more than 70 percent of injuries required urgent surgical intervention.

Since October 6, Israel's military has conducted a sweeping air and ground assault in northern Gaza, particularly in the areas of Jabalia, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun, in what it calls an operation to prevent Hamas militants from regrouping.

"The Israeli occupation has continued around-the-clock bombardment of civilian homes, especially in northern Gaza," Bassal said on Sunday.

"This shelling has led to the destruction of numerous buildings and infrastructure... Over 100,000 residents are in northern Gaza without food, water or medicine," he added.

He told AFP that residents were "being bombed without prior warning".

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Sunday that at least 43,341 people have been killed and 102,105 people wounded in the year-long war between Israel and Palestinian militants.

Meanwhile, Lebanon's health ministry said three people were killed in an Israeli strike Sunday near the southern city of Sidon, as state media reported the recovery of five bodies from the flashpoint southern town of Khiam.

The health ministry said a strike on Haret Saida, a densely populated neighbourhood near Sidon, killed three people and wounded nine others more than a month into the Israel-Hezbollah war.

In the nearby town of Ghaziyeh, south of Sidon, an Israeli raid hit a building, according to the official National News Agency (NNA). An AFP correspondent said a child was rescued alive from beneath the rubble. The health ministry did not provide a death toll.

Further south, the Lebanese Red Cross recovered five out of 21 bodies that have been trapped under the rubble in the town of Khiam for around one week, according to NNA.

Emergency teams had been previously unable to access the flashpoint town, some six kilometres from the border, where Hezbollah says it battling Israeli ground forces.

The remaining corpses will be recovered on Monday, NNA said.

It the southern town of Tebnine, Israeli strikes hit near a governmental hospital, causing significant damage to the facility, according to Tebnine mayor Nabil Fawaz.

Fawaz told AFP that the hospital may be out of service as a result of the damage, but an official decision has yet to be taken.

Israeli strikes also hit near the Baalbek governmental hospital, in the country's east, the hospital director said in a statement carried by NNA.

"The damage to the hospital is minor and the shattered glass will be replaced within 24 hours," Abbas Shukr was quoted as saying.