More than 40 Palestinians have been killed in an Israel air attack against a cafeteria near the port of Gaza City, according to the director of the largest hospital in the territory, which attended those affected.
Dr. Mohammad Abu Silmiya, director of the Al-Shifa hospital, reported Monday night that at least 41 people died and 75 were injured in the attack. They show a dense column of smoke that rises from the place, as well as generalized damages in the cafeteria and its surroundings. They also show the transfer of bodies on stretchers. The Israel Defense Forces (FDI) reported that they were investigating the circumstances of the attack.
The Al-Baqa cafeteria was a well-known place, always full of students, journalists, artists and teleworkors, since it offered the Internet and a work space next to the Mediterranean coast. One of the few spaces in which to connect in a territory where Alector is very scarce, barely sustained with generators.
Silmiya states that “most victims are young,” including many university students who were in the cafeteria to have WiFi. He also indicated that the hospital lacked UCI and anesthetic beds to serve the injured. The death toll increased Monday night after some people died from their wounds. “We serve the injured at the hospital floor because there are no rooms or beds available,” added the director of the center.
Among the deceased was the independent journalist Ismail Abu Hatab, according to other informants present at the scene. The Government Media Office, controlled by Hamas, reported that its death raised to 228 the number of journalists killed by Israeli military action in Gaza since October 2023.
In addition, the Palestine reporter Bayan Abu Sultan was injured, with 250,000 followers on Instagram, whose bloody image after surviving the bombing went virally after the attack.
The journalist Bayan Abu Sultan, wounded in the attack.
which governs the strip, said that the bombing was aimed at a rest area in the beach of Ciudad de Gaza, where the Gazatis who have fled from the constant attacks against the rest of the city. “No one expected this coffee to be bombarded, because no one comes here, neither the resistance nor the combatants. Those who come are people who are fed up and want to breathe fresh air,” he told Efe in the place of the Mohamed Bakr events, which works in a cafeteria near Al Baqa.
“No one expected this coffee to be bombarded, because no one comes here, neither the resistance nor the combatants”
The Gazatí was sitting at his workplace when a missile hit the area. “When we impacted, ran and entered the coffee to the baqa. We saw unprecedented scenes. Human remains, women and children lying on the ground, all torn apart (…). There were even bodies mixed with the rubble that could not be distinguished,” said the man.
Bakr said he saw more than twenty dead in the place, and that an injured man in his head and agonizing died in front of him “with the brain out.” According to the Gazatí, people go to coffees “to escape the war.” “They have nowhere to go, there is no place they can escape,” adds the man.
The man also explained that Israeli bombings against Gaza during the last four days have become much more intense and unpredictable.
According to Hamas, attacks against the Gazatí capital are aimed at Humanitarian aid stores, tents for displaced people and concentrations of people along with help distribution points.
At least 56,531 people have died and more than 133,000 have been injured in Israeli attacks against the strip since the beginning of the war, according to the last count of the Ministry of Health of the Enclave.
