At least 500 Palestinian children were killed by sustained Israeli air attacks and bombing in Gaza since Israel broke the ceasefire with Hamas last month, said Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for the Civil Defense of Gaza, while a UN official described the territory of war as a “post-apocalyptic killing area”.
Meanwhile, Israeli air raids in Gaza killed at least six people on Saturday, including a child, passing the number of deaths in the last 24 hours to over 20 years. More than 1,500 people have been killed since Israel resumed its Gaza bombing on March 18, according to figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
During the latest Israeli attacks on Saturday, two people were killed and two children were injured in the Gaza district of Tuffah, while two others were killed in the Al-Aatra district of Beit Lahiya, in the northern part of Gaza.
Another Palestinian was killed in an Israeli drone attack in the Qizan An-Najjar region, south of Khan Younis.
Several victims were also reported after Israeli air raids on civilian tent shelters in the Al-Mawasi region, west of Khan Younis, which Israel had appointed a so-called “safe zone”.
Hind Khoudary of Al Jazeera, reporting outside the Al-Ahli hospital in Deir El-Balah, Central Gaza, reported that a newborn named Sham was seriously injured after the child of the child was struck in an attack.
“She was in a very critical condition where her arm was amputated and died a few hours later, because her injury was very critical and the doctors could not help her situation,” she said. The death brings to six the number of deaths early Saturday.
Khoudary also reported that two forced evacuation orders had been issued on Saturday in Shujayea and Khan Younis.
“The Palestinians do not know where to go.”
“We are here at the Al-Aqsa hospital and we observe the ambulances that come every day and most of those who are targeted, injured or killed, are women and children.
“Due to the lack of medical supplies, most of these Palestinian children and women attend a very deteriorated situation,” she added.
On Friday, Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, reported that 36 of the 224 Israeli strikes documented in Gaza, between March 18 and April 9, implied deaths that were only women and children.
In a statement, the Palestinian rights group al-haq said that UN’s conclusions had confirmed a model that he previously identified.
“Such an effort calculated to exterminate women, boys, girls and even infants, has not been observed in any other modern conflict,” said Al-Haq in an article on social networks.
In an interview with Al Jazeera FrancThe head of the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, described the situation in Gaza as a “post-apocalyptic” killing area.
Speaking on Friday at the Antalya diplomacy forum in Turkiye, Lazzarini also reiterated that Israel prevented the entry of food, fuel, medicine and other vital humanitarian supplies in Gaza, offending to international law.
In an article separated on X on Saturday, UNRWA’s communications director Juliette Touma warned that all the basic supplies “exhaust” Gaza.
“This means that babies, children will go to bed hungry.”
Israel has undertaken to put pressure on his military offensive, with officials in recent days, describing plans to grasp new bands of territories in the south of Gaza and issue a series of forced evacuation orders.
UNRWA said that around 400,000 Palestinians had been forcibly moved through Gaza since the end of the ceasefire on March 18. Israel has forcibly moved around 90% of the population of Gaza 2.3 since its launch of the war on October 7, 2023. More than 50,000 Palestinians were killed and 115.981 sentenced rights groups.
