GAZA CITY: Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Saturday that an overnight Israeli strike on the Khan Yunis refugee camp killed at least 11 people, including three babies up to a year old.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal reported 11 killed “after the bombardment of the Al-Bayram family home in the Khan Yunis camp” in southern Gaza at around 3am.

Bassal said that eight of the dead had been identified and were all from the same extended family, including a boy and girl, both one-year-olds, and a month-old baby.

An Israeli army spokesperson confirmed the strike. At the scene, rescue workers and residents searched through the rubble with their bare hands, illuminating the destruction with hand-held torches.

Footage by an AFP journalist showed a rescuer that was carrying the lifeless body of an infant from the wreckage.

Foreign Press Association urges Tel Aviv to give media ‘unrestricted’ access to Palestinian enclave

Fayka Abu Hatab, a resident in a nearby building, said she “saw a bright light, then there was an explosion, and dust covered the entire area”. “We couldn’t see anything, it all went dark,” Abu Hatab said.

“All of our windows were destroyed, our rooms were destroyed, the neighbours’ house was destroyed,” she added.

On Friday the civil defence agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 42 people across the conflict-ravaged territory, which has been under a total Israeli blockade since March 2.

Israel halted aid deliveries to Gaza, saying Hamas had diverted supplies. Israel says the blockade is meant to pressure Hamas into releasing prisoners held in the Palestinian territory.

‘Unrestricted’ access

The Foreign Press Association on Saturday called on Israel to allow news media “unrestricted” access to Gaza, off-limits to outside journalists operating independently since the conflict there began in Oct 2023.

“We call on Israel to stop the never-ending delays, uphold the fundamental principles of press freedom and allow unrestricted entry for journalists to Gaza,” the Jerusalem-based association wrote in a statement to mark World Press Freedom Day.

The FPA has more than 350 members working for foreign media outlets in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. The association criticised Israel for an “unprecedented ban preventing foreign journalists from entering Gaza”, calling the decision a “mark of shame for a country that claims to be a beacon of democracy”.

The FPA, which has filed an appeal with the Israeli Supreme Court challenging the ban, said its members “salute our Palestinian colleagues who continue to report the story at great personal risk”.

With the exception of a journalist for US outlet CNN who entered a field hospital in Rafah operated by the United Arab Emirates in 2023, the only outside journalists allowed into Gaza, which is under Israeli blockade, did so with Israeli forces.

Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2025