By Abdul Adil

(AA, Al Jazeera, Wafa, NNA, The Muslim News):

GAZA

Three Palestinians were killed and seven others injured in Israeli airstrikes targeting southern and northern Gaza Strip, according to medical sources on Saturday.

Israeli army killed three Palestinians in an attack on the Abu Halaweh area, east of Rafah city in southern Gaza. Eyewitnesses confirmed that the attack was carried out by an Israeli drone.

They also reported that Israeli military vehicles stationed along the Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border opened fire toward Palestinian homes in southern and central Rafah.

Additionally, an Israeli tank fired a sound bomb at homes in the Al-Salam neighborhood in eastern Rafah.

Further reports from eyewitnesses indicated that Israeli army vehicles positioned near the eastern border of Gaza City opened intensive fire.

Separately, seven Palestinians were injured when an Israeli drone targeted a bulldozer clearing debris from a destroyed home in the town of Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza.

A medical source told Anadolu that the wounded were transferred to Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.

This came amid ongoing Israeli escalation and incursions into various parts of the Gaza Strip, resulting in further civilian casualties.

WOMEN KILLED IN GAZA

Israeli forces have killed 24 female Palestinian journalists during its war on Gaza, the head of the Government Media Office in Gaza said on Saturday.

In a statement issued on International Women’s Day, Salama Maarouf said that the killings violated international humanitarian law, adding that they occurred before the “free world, which claims to advocate for women’s rights and the defense of journalists.”

“Their status as women could not protect them from the Israeli army nor could their journalistic immunity shield them from the murderous entity,” he added.

Maarouf also accused the international community of “failing to take substantial action,” saying that “many responses have been limited to statements of condemnation,” which he deemed “hypocritical and inadequate.”

In addition, Israel’s indiscriminate bombings on Gaza has left more than 2,000 women and girls with permanent disabilities, the head of the Gaza government’s media office said on International Women’s Day.

In a statement, Salama Maarouf said: “The Israeli aggression in Gaza has caused irreversible damage to the lives of countless Palestinian women and girls, particularly in the wake of Israel’s ongoing genocidal campaign.”

“The Israeli genocide in Gaza has left 2,000 women and girls permanently disabled due to amputations, with 162 women suffering from contagious diseases, while dozens more have been tortured in detention centers,” he added.

Maarouf further emphasized the devastating toll the violence has had on women, with 13,901 women widowed and forced to become the sole providers for their families, 17,000 mothers mourning the loss of their children, and 50,000 pregnant women who lost their babies under inhumane conditions.

The head of the Government Media Office in the Gaza Strip, Salama Maarouf, says 12,316 women have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza.

“Women’s Day coincides with the continuation of the Israeli siege and the prevention of aid as women live in catastrophic humanitarian conditions and suffer from starvation and thirst,” Maarouf said.

Israel’s war also left 2,000 women and girls with permanent disabilities from amputations and 162 with infectious diseases, according to government data.

Additionally, 13,901 women were widowed and at least 17,000 mothers lost their children, while more than 50,000 pregnant women lost their unborn babies.

The Palestinian Authority has urged on International Women’s Day that the international community take responsibility for ensuring protection for Palestinian women.

Its Foreign Ministry highlighted that “519 days of Israel’s war on Gaza have resulted in the killings of more than 12,298 women with thousands more subjected to forced displacement”.

“Palestinian women stand at the heart of the struggle for survival, bearing the greatest burden of genocide, crimes against humanity, and attempts at forced displacement and ethnic cleansing,” the ministry said in a statement.

It added that 21 Palestinian women are currently being held in “harsh and inhumane conditions in Israeli prisons where they endure torture, solitary confinement, and medical neglect”.

Palestinian medics and rescue teams have recovered seven more bodies from the rubble in the Gaza Strip, pushing the overall death toll from Israel’s war since October 2023 to 48,453, the Gaza Health Ministry said on Saturday.

A ministry statement said that the toll included six Palestinians killed by Israeli gunfire in the last 48 hours.

According to the ministry, eight injured people were also admitted to hospitals, increasing the number injured in the Israeli onslaught to 111,860.

“Many victims are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads, with rescuers unable to reach them,” the ministry said.

The Government Media Office updated its death toll to at least 61,709, saying thousands of Palestinians missing under the rubble are presumed dead.

WEST BANK

The Israeli army raided a town Friday in the central occupied West Bank, injuring two teens and detaining a third, amid an escalation across the West Bank, according to the official Palestinian news agency, Wafa.

The army raided Ni’lin in western Ramallah, triggering clashes with Palestinians.

Soldiers fired live bullets and tear gas canisters, resulting in injury to two teens.

The army, meanwhile, erected a checkpoint in the northern area of the town and detained a minor, the Palestinian broadcaster also said, adding that Israeli forces stopped Palestinian-registered vehicles, checked passengers’ identity cards and caused a huge traffic jam.

Illegal Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian village of Ein al-Auja, north of Jericho, in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Information Center.

The settlers stole 800 of the village’s sheeps, the center reported.

Israeli occupation forces embarked on bulldozing land today in the village of Madama, located south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, according to local sources.

Abdullah Ziyada, head of thee Madama village council, told WAFA that the Israeli bulldozers started clearing lands and uprooting olive trees on the outskirts of the village. He added that the Israeli forces had issued a notice a week earlier to confiscate these lands.

Israeli settlers attacked local Palestinian citizens and their properties today in Masafer Yatta area, south of Hebron, under the protection of the Israeli occupation army, which later detained three Palestinians, according to local sources.

Osama Makhamra, a local activist, reported that the settlers targeted Palestinian citizens and their properties, releasing their livestock into the crops and near the homes of residents in the village of Khallet al-Daba’ in Masafer Yatta.

Makhamra added that local residents confronted the settlers and managed to drive them away from their farms. However, the Israeli army intervened, protecting the assailants, conducting searches in the village, and detaining three Palestinians after assaulting and beating them.

Dozens of settlers Friday night attacked the Bedouin community of Ras Ein al-Auja, north of Jericho, and stole sheep owned by Palestinian residents, according to a local official.

Hassan Malihat, the general supervisor of the Al-Baydar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights, told WAFA that dozens of colonists, traveling in trucks and under the protection of Israeli occupation forces, raided the Ras Ein al-Auja area, fired live bullets, searched livestock barns and stole two flocks of sheep at gunpoint.

LEBANON

Lebanon’s civil defence agency says one person has been killed and another wounded in an Israeli air raid on the village of Khirbet Selm in the south of the country.

Separately, the Israeli military said it targeted a Hezbollah fighter with an air strike in southern Lebanon.

Despite an ongoing ceasefire, an Israeli airstrike on Lebanon injured several people in a vehicle in the southern city of Bint Jbeil on Saturday, according to official media reports.

The Israeli army carried out a drone strike on a vehicle in Khirbet Selm in the city of Bint Jbeil in the Nabatieh governorate, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported, confirming injuries without specifying the number.

While the agency did not give more details of the attack or the target, the Israeli army admitted in a statement that it had carried out a drone strike in southern Lebanon, claiming to have targeted a Hezbollah operative.

As of yet, Hezbollah has not issued a statement in response to the Israeli claims.

A fragile ceasefire has been in place in Lebanon since Nov. 27, ending months of cross-border warfare between Israel and the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah that escalated into a full-scale conflict in September.

But Lebanese authorities have reported nearly 1,100 Israeli violations of the ceasefire, including the deaths of at least 84 people and injuries to more than 280.

Under the ceasefire deal, Israel was supposed to fully withdraw from southern Lebanon by Jan. 26, but the deadline was extended to Feb. 18 after Israel refused to comply. It still maintains a military presence at five border outposts.

[Photo: Palestinian women living at makeshift tents struggle to survive under harsh conditions in Khan Yunis and Bureij Camp, in the Gaza Strip on March 07, 2025. For women in the Gaza Strip, which has become a “ghost zone” due to Israel’s attacks over the past 16 months, March 8 International Women’s Day is once again marked by hunger, thirst, and poverty. In Gaza, where relentless bombings since October 7, 2023, have reduced entire neighborhoods to rubble, women and children have paid the heaviest toll. Photojournalist: Doaa Albaz/AA]