GAZA, May 18 (Xinhua) -- The main COVID-19 testing center in Gaza city was damaged due to intensive Israeli fighter jet strikes waged on the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian health official said Tuesday.
Yousef Abu al-Reesh, health ministry director-general in Gaza, told reporters that the COVID-19 testing center in the Remal neighborhood in western Gaza city has completely stopped operating due to the Israeli airstrikes on the area.
He added that a compound, which includes a laboratory, health ministry offices and an outpatient clinic, was badly damaged after several buildings surrounding the compound were completely destroyed by the airstrikes.
He also said that several doctors and health ministry staff were injured following the Israeli destruction of the buildings on Monday night.
The senior health official called on the international community, mainly the World Health Organization, to ensure full protection of the health ministry facilities in the Gaza Strip.
"The Gaza Strip needs the help of health and humanitarian organizations to ensure medical supplies needed for the protection of medical staff amid the spread of coronavirus in the world," he said.
On Tuesday, Palestinian security sources and eyewitnesses said that Israeli fighter jets had carried out dozens of airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, targeting homes, apartments, roads and agricultural fields.
An Israeli army spokesman said in a statement that the fighter jets targeted a network of underground tunnels which belong to the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the Gaza Strip.
The statement said that 60 fighter jets had participated in the airstrikes, adding that around 100 missiles were fired on Hamas targets within 35 minutes early on Tuesday morning.
It also said that militant groups led by Hamas had fired 90 rockets from the Gaza Strip at Israeli towns and cities, adding that the Israeli army "Iron Dome" had managed to intercept 70 of the fired rockets.
The health ministry in Gaza said that since the start of the tit-for-tat Israeli-Palestinian military confrontation, 212 Palestinians have been killed, including 61 children, while 1,400 others have been injured.
