Panic and heartbreak: The devastating effect of an airstrike in Gaza
As Israel’s southern offensive continues, and thousands of Palestinians have been injured or killed, Khan Younis has been hit with an airstrike. Sky News’ chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay reports on the scenes in the city and the strike’s “devastating effect”.
It’s two months since Hamas crossed the border from Gaza, entered Israel and launched its bloodthirsty attack; killing, looting, and taking hostages.
Since then, Israel has launched its enormous response that started with airstrikes and artillery barrages and is now a full-on invasion of the whole of Gaza with soldiers and armoured vehicles fighting street to street.
In the process, much of the north of Gaza has been completely flattened. The Israel Defence Forces say hundreds of tunnel entrances have been found and a major proportion of the tunnel network destroyed.
Follow latest: ‘Hundreds’ killed in single day
Two months since Hamas’s attack, Israel has carried out a full-scale invasion of Gaza. Pic: Tariq Dahlan
Everybody in Gaza is affected by the Israeli invasion. Hundreds of thousands have been forced to move locations multiple times. Many of the two million odd population is now crammed into the south, where there is little aid and little safety.
There is no ceasefire and there appears to be little prospect of one. International aid agencies and the United Nations have called for a ceasefire, although countries like the UK and the US talk about targeted attacks, increased aid for Gaza, pauses in the fighting – but crucially not a ceasefire.
Israel is unrepentant and seems happy to ignore condemnation, particularly from Arab countries and the UN, while it works towards its two objectives: freeing the hostages and destroying Hamas.
Many of the two million odd population in Gaza is now crammed into the south. Pic: Tariq Dahlan
The problem for them is that despite its overwhelming dominance of the battle space, no more hostages have been found and the Hamas leadership appear not to have been killed or captured.
Until they achieve something, this war will grind on and each day pictures of life and death in Gaza get worse and worse.
The latest images show the immediate aftermath of an airstrike in Khan Younis – and its devastating effect.
Israel is ‘unrepentant and seems happy to ignore condemnation’ in its response. Pic: Tariq Dahlan
On a main road there are injured everywhere, dazed and covered in dust and blood, and panic everywhere as an ambulance pulls up.
A man calls for help and shouts at others to come and help dig through the rubble by hand.
Off the main road a house is on fire, much of it has been destroyed.
‘On a main road there are injured … and panic everywhere as an ambulance pulls up.’ Pic: Tariq Dahlan
An injured survivor with blood covering his face stands in the rubble, unsure what to do next.
Two men approach, and one lifts him onto his back and carries him away.
There are children injured, too. Footage shows rescuers bringing a little girl to the edge of the smashed building, they lower her down. She’s followed by another little girl, and then another.
The IDF is now operating across the entire Gaza Strip. Pic: Tariq Dahlan
The rescuers, neighbours and friends search through the building, shifting rubble trying to find more survivors.
Another is trapped under rubble. A red scarf is placed near her head to try keep her comfortable as they frantically try to figure out how to extract her from the mass of concrete on top of her.
Survivors of this airstrike say there were about 50 people staying at this house, and that many of them had already been forced from their homes elsewhere in the Gaza Strip.
Ashraf Abu Asif’s wife and two daughters were killed in this attack.
Ashraf Abu Asif’s wife and two daughters were killed in the airstrike. Pic: Tariq Dahlan
“I am a resident of Bena Sela, we got displaced and came to the house of Abu Faiz and Abu Salah. We came here to live in the safety of God. We saw nothing until a missile fell on us,” he said.
“God rescued me, but my children, my brother’s children, my in-laws, everyone was at this home,” he added, saying he was going to the hospital next to try find other family members.
The IDF is now operating across the entire Gaza Strip.
An airstrike in Khan Younis has caused devastation for Palestinians. Pic: Tariq Dahlan
From central Gaza, our team sent us pictures showing the scene outside one of the main hospitals still operating there.
Rimah Murad Mansi is sheltering behind the al Aqsa Hospital with her children. Crucially, she’s not inside the compound, so she and her family are exposed.
Rimah Murad Mansi said Israel ‘hit us with everything, they humiliated us’
“They have hit us with everything they had. They hit us with everything, they humiliated us,” she said, saying they have no food or water.
“We have seen too much, and it is enough. The whole world is just looking at us, it is enough! We have seen everything, enough with it. Stand with us, stop this insanity. Stop being silent.”
Among crowds outside the front of the hospital, a little boy is looking for his father.
“Here he is, here he is,” he cries, as he sees his father’s body wrapped in a white sheet.
A little boy was left ‘utterly inconsolable’ after his father died in an Israeli strike
He has just realised his father is dead.
He is utterly inconsolable. It’s the dawning realisation of his own loss that’s so heart-breaking.
And with no prospect of a ceasefire these scenes of the injured, the dead, and the mourning, will be repeated constantly.
‘Here he is, here he is,’ the boy cries after seeing his father’s body wrapped in a white sheet
The Syrian presidency has announced it’s assembling a special taskforce to try to stop nearly a week of sectarian clashes in the southern Druze city of Sweida.
The presidency called for restraint on all sides and said it is making strenuous efforts to “stop the fighting and curb the violations that threaten the security of the citizens and the safety of society”.
By early Saturday morning, a ceasefire had been confirmed by the US special envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, who posted on X that Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to a ceasefire supported by US secretary of state Marco Rubio.
The post went on to state that this agreement had the support of “Turkey, Jordan and its neighbours” and called upon the Druze, Bedouins, and Sunni factions to put down their arms.
Sky News special correspondent Alex Crawford reports from the road leading to Sweida, the city that has become the epicentre of Syria’s sectarian violence.
For the past 24 hours, we’ve watched as Syria‘s multiple Arab tribes began mobilising in the Sweida province to help defend their Bedouin brethren.
Thousands travelled from multiple different Syrian areas and had reached the edge of Sweida city by Friday nightfall after a day of almost non-stop violent clashes and killings.
“We have come to protect the [Arab] Bedouin women and children who are being terrorised by the Druze,” they told us.
Arab fighters said they had come to protect the Bedouin women and children
Fighters at a petrol station
Every shop and every home in the streets leading up to Sweida city has been burned or ransacked, the contents destroyed or looted.
We saw tribal fighters loading the back of pickup trucks and driving away from the city with vehicles packed with looted goods from Druze homes.
Shops and homes leading up to Sweida city have been burned or ransacked
Several videos posted online showed violence against the Druze, including one where tribal fighters force three men to throw themselves off a high-rise balcony and are seen being shot as they do so.
Doctors at the nearby community hospital in Buser al Harir said there had been a constant stream of casualties being brought in. As we watched, another dead fighter was carried out of an ambulance.
The medics estimated there had been more than 600 dead in their area alone. “The youngest child who was killed was a one-and-a-half-year-old baby,” one doctor told us.
Doctors said there had been a constant stream of casualties due to violence
The violence is the most dangerous outbreak of sectarian clashes since the fall of the Bashar al Assad regime last December – and the most serious challenge for the new leader to navigate.
The newly brokered deal is aimed at ending the sectarian killings and restoring some sort of stability in a country which is emerging from more than a decade of civil war.
Israel and Syria have agreed to a ceasefire, the US ambassador to Turkey has said.
Several hundred people have reportedly been killed this week in the south of Syria in violence involving local fighters, government authorities and Bedouin tribes.
As the violence escalated in the southern province of Sweida, Israel launched airstrikes, including attacks on Wednesday on the defence ministry in Damascus and a target near the presidential palace.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government said it aimed to protect Syrian Druze – part of a small but influential minority that also has followers in Lebanon and Israel.
In a post on X, the US ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack, said Israel and Syria had agreed to a ceasefire supported by Turkey, Jordan and others.
“We call upon Druze, Bedouins, and Sunnis to put down their weapons and together with other minorities build a new and united Syrian identity,” Mr Barrack said in a post on X.
The Israeli embassy in Washington and Syrian Consulate in Canada did not immediately comment or respond to requests for comment from the Reuters news agency.
The ceasefire announcement came after the US worked to put an end to the conflict, with secretary of state Marco Rubio saying on Wednesday that steps had been agreed to end a “troubling and horrifying situation”.
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Why is Israel bombing Syria?
After Israel warned it would destroy forces attacking Syrian Druze, Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa told the minority group in a televised statement on Thursday that “we reject any attempt to drag you into hands of an external party”.
He then claimed Israel has “consistently targeted our stability and created discord among us since the fall of the former regime”.
It comes after the United Nations’ migration agency said earlier on Friday that nearly 80,000 people had been displaced in the region since violence broke out on Sunday.
It also said that essential services, including water and electricity, had collapsed in Sweida, telecommunications systems were widely disrupted, and health facilities in Sweida and Daraa were under severe strain.
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At least three people have been killed after a “horrific incident” at a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department training facility, officials have said.
A spokesperson for the department said there was an explosion at the Biscailuz Center Academy Training in east LA.
The incident was reported at around 7.30am local time (3.30pm UK time).
Aerial footage from local channel KABC-TV suggests the blast happened in a parking lot filled with sheriff patrol cars and box trucks.
The training centre in east LA. Pic: NBC Los Angeles
Attorney general Pam Bondi wrote on X: “I just spoke to @USAttyEssayli about what appears to be a horrific incident that killed at least three at a law enforcement training facility in Los Angeles.
“Our federal agents are at the scene and we are working to learn more.”
California congressman Jimmy Sanchez said the explosion had “claimed the lives of at least three deputies”.
“My condolences to the families and everyone impacted by this loss,” he said.
Media and law enforcement officials near the explosion site. Pic: AP
The attorney general said in a follow-up post that agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are “on the ground to support”.
The mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, said the LAPD bomb squad has also responded to the scene.
“The thoughts of all Angelenos are with all of those impacted by this blast,” she said.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has been briefed on the incident, his press office said in a post on X.
“The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services is in contact with the Sheriff’s Department and closely monitoring the situation, and has offered full state assistance,” it added.
The cause of the explosion is being investigated.
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