Israeli army arrested more than 2,600 Palestinians since October 7: Gaza govt

Gaza City, Palestinian Territories - The Israeli army has arrested more than 2,600 Palestinians, including 40 medical staffers and eight journalists, in Gaza since October 7, the government media office in the blockaded enclave said on Saturday.

“We have received testimonies that the occupation army has committed field executions of more than 137 Palestinian civilians in the Gaza and northern governorates,” Ismail al-thawabteh, director of the media office, said in a news conference held at the Al-aqsa Martyrs hospital in central Gaza Strip.

He said that the Israeli army ‘set up detention camps east of Gaza City, dug large pits in them and placed dozens of our Palestinian citizens inside before executing them by shooting them directly, and then buried them with bulldozers’.

Thawabteh said that ‘ the occupation executed pregnant women on their way to AlAwda Hospital in northern

Gaza. They were raising white flags, but the occupation (forces) shot them from a close distance and then buried them on the spot’.

He said that the Israeli army ‘committed 1,720 massacres during the war, resulting in 27,258 martyrs and missing, including 20,258 martyrs who reached hospitals, including 8,200 children, 6,200 women, 310 medical staffers, 35 from civil defense, and 100 journalists’. He said: “7,000 are still missing, either under the rubble or their fate is still unknown, and 70 per cent of them are children and women.”

Thawabteh said that the Israeli army has also destroyed 126 government buildings, adding that 92 schools and universities completely went out of service, and 285 schools and universities were partially damaged. The Israeli army, he said, also completely destroyed 115 mosques, while 200 mosques are partially damaged, in addition to three churches.