Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has called for an emergency UN Security Council session on “the bloody massacre that was carried out by the Israeli forces” at the al-Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, Reuters reports quoting the WAFA news agency.

Israeli forces rescued four hostages held by Hamas, since October, in a raid in Gaza on Saturday while over 200 Palestinians were killed in airstrikes in the same area, according to Hamas officials, in one of the bloodiest Israeli assaults of the war.

Palestinian health ministry officials and local medics said that the Israeli military assault in Nuseirat had killed scores of people including women and children.

The government media office in Gaza said later the death toll had risen to at least 210 Palestinians with many more wounded, after medics and health officials gave earlier tolls of up to 100 dead. There was no immediate confirmation of the highest figure from Gaza’s health ministry.

Social media footage that Reuters could not immediately verify showed bodies spilling entrails onto bloodstained streets.

The spokesperson for the Qassam Brigades, who goes by nom de guerre Abu Obeida, says that the attacks carried out today by the Israeli military in central Gaza represent a “complex war crime”, Al Jazeera reported.

He also said that “the first to be harmed by [the Israeli army] are its prisoners”, in a reference to the around 120 captives still held in the Gaza Strip.

More to follow…