A FEMALE Palestinian journalist is one of at least 24 people, including more than a dozen women and children, killed in Gaza by Israel overnight and into Sunday, local health officials have said.
The latest strikes hit a residential building and a tent sheltering displaced people in the southern city of Khan Younis, killing five men, five women and five children, according to Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies.
One of those killed by Israel is Palestinian journalist Islam Meqdad, along with her child, Adam, as an an attack struck a home in the Al-Amal neighbourhood in western Khan Younis, the AP reports.
Her mother, Amal Kaskeen, said: "My daughter is innocent. She had no involvement, she loved journalism and adored it."
Israeli shelling also killed at least four people in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
And the bodies of five people, including a child and three women, arrived at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, according to an AP journalist there.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 50,695 Palestinians and injured another 115,338 people, the majority of whom were women and children.
It comes as phone footage recovered from one of the 15 Palestinian emergency workers killed by Israel last month contradicts Israel's claims that the medics’ vehicles did not have emergency signals on when troops opened fire on them.
On March 23, eight Red Crescent personnel, six Civil Defence workers and a UN worker were killed by Israeli troops in Tel al-Sultan, a district of the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Their bodies – and the emergency vehicles they were driving in – were bulldozed and buried in a mass grave, with rescue workers only given access to the site one week later.
Israeli forces initially claimed that troops opened fire on the vehicles because they were “advancing suspiciously” on nearby soldiers without headlights or emergency signals.
Yet the new phone footage presented to the UN security council on Friday shows the workers driving in clearly marked emergency vehicles with the sirens on.
Meanwhile, on Saturday evening two Labour MPs were detained and deported by Israeli authorities while attempting to enter the occupied West Bank on a parliamentary trip.
Abtisam Mohamed and Yuan Yang said they were "astounded" by the decision and that it is “vital” that parliamentarians are able to “witness first-hand” the situation on the ground in Palestine.
According to a statement from the Israeli immigration ministry, the two MPs were rejected because they were suspected of plans to "document the activities of security forces and spread anti-Israel hatred."
The claims have been rejected by Foreign Secretary Lammy and the charities which organised the trip.
