On Wednesday, Day 390 of the ongoing genocide, Israeli missiles and shells struck various parts of the devastated, besieged, and impoverished coastal enclave, killing and wounding dozens of Palestinians, including children and women.
Update: 11:59 pm Oct 30, 2024:
Additional Israeli airstrikes in Beit Lahia and Jabalia have killed dozens more people, adding to the body count from Tuesday morning and Monday, during which time over 200 Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes.
In one airstrike targeting the Beit Lahia project market, at least six Palestinians were killed and many others were injured on Wednesday. A correspondent with Wafa news reported, quoting paramedics, that 6 Palestinians were killed and a number of wounded were transferred to Kamal Adwan Hospital in Jabalia camp, as a result of an Israeli drone bombing a group of citizens in the Beit Lahia project market.
“Everything is being wiped out in Beit Lahia: shelters, schools, hospitals, houses. The past couple of days had the most horrific air raids in residential areas”, reports Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary (@Hind_Gaza).
According to the report by Khoudary, “Residents in Beit Lahia had opened their homes to all civilians fleeing from Jabalia, where the Israeli army had been focusing its military operations at the start of the siege three weeks ago. So now Israel forces are concentrating all their attack on Beit Lahia.
“Videos shared online show that no civil defence team, no ambulance have been allowed to access and rescue the wounded in Beit Lahia, with many people trapped under the rubble.
“We are talking about a siege for the past three weeks, meaning no water, no food or aid.
“People are now forced to drink dirty water.”
Palestinian Red Crescent paramedic Abdul Aziz Al-Bardini transported the body of a person who was killed in an Israeli bombing of a car in Al-Maghazi camp in the central Gaza Strip. When he arrived at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, he discovered that the body was his mother, Samira Al-Bardini.
According to the latest statistics, the death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 43,163, the majority of whom are children and women, since the start of the Israeli occupation’s invasion of Gaza on October 7, 2023. The death toll has also risen to 101,510, while thousands of victims are still under the rubble.
Among the slain Palestinians are at least 17,029 children, 11,585 women, 2,421 elderly people, 177 journalists, 85 emergency responders, 986 medical staff, and 203 UNRWA staff.
The British Lancet Medical Journal and other experts estimate the death toll in Gaza is much higher – and could be above 200,000, when counting both direct and indirect deaths related to the Israeli war on Gaza.
This most recent escalation of Israel’s ongoing military occupation of Palestine began October 7th 2023 when 1,143 Israelis were killed, including 767 civilians and 376 armed soldiers. Around 500 Israeli soldiers have been killed between October 7th and now – both in Gaza and on the Israeli border with Lebanon.
Updated from: Oct 30, 2024 at 12:24 pm
Media sources reported that the army struck many homes, buildings, and areas where families sheltered, resulting in dozens of casualties.
In Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, four Palestinians, including a child and two women, were killed in an airstrike that targeted a house in the Sheikh Nasser area.
Earlier, an Israeli military helicopter strike a tent for displaced persons in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, resulted in the death of four Palestinians and the injury of many others, largely children.
The army also killed and injured many Palestinians, including children and women, in the Zawaida area in central Gaza.
Additionally, Palestinian Civil Defense teams recovered the corpses of six Palestinians from under the rubble after an airstrike targeted displaced civilians in the Al-Sudaniyya area, northwest of Gaza City.
The army also fired barrages of artillery and tank shells, and missiles, including missiles fired by the Israeli navy at the An-Nazla neighborhood in Jabalia, in northern Gaza, causing extensive damage to homes and buildings.
Palestinian medics and rescue teams rushed to the bombarded areas and started evacuating wounded Palestinians while continuing the search under the rubble.
Dozens of Palestinians were killed and injured in Israeli bombings and airstrikes targeting many homes and buildings in Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza.
Al-Jazeera reported that the Israeli army continued the bombing of various parts of the coastal enclave and added that the Israeli attacks killed 93 Palestinians and injured dozens, in addition to about 40 who remain under the rubble in Beit Lahia.
The Beit Lahia Municipality has declared the city a “disaster area” due to the ongoing genocide and Israeli siege that has persisted for weeks.
The municipality has called on the international community to pressure Israel to end the genocide in northern Gaza.
In its statement, the municipality highlighted that the city lacks essential supplies, including food, water, hospitals, doctors, services, and communication, and urgently requested the establishment of a safe corridor to deliver medical supplies, food, fuel, civil defense equipment, and ambulances to the city and northern Gaza.
The Jabalia refugee camp and Jabalia city have also been subject to intense Israeli bombing and shelling attacks, causing many casualties.
The northern parts of the Gaza Strip have been subject to an intense and increased Israeli bombing and shelling campaign for the past 26 days, in addition to the wiring and detonation of homes, preventing the entry of basic humanitarian supplies, including food, water, and medicine, resulting in the death of more than 1,000 Palestinians and thousands of injuries.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights warned that Israeli forces’ attacks, imposed restrictions, and forced displacement in northern Gaza could lead to “the end of the Palestinian presence in that area.”
It added that life has become “impossible” for civilians trapped in northern Gaza, with many residents on the brink of starvation due to repeated forced displacement and severe restrictions on access to essential humanitarian aid supplies.
The office noted that Israeli forces continue to bomb and attack the area, particularly the Jabalia refugee camp and its surroundings, and confirmed that Israeli forces have stripped many citizens of their possessions before the onset of winter, destroying homes and schools used as shelters.
On the evening of October 5, Israeli special forces infiltrated and surrounded Jabalia and its refugee camp from the east and west, coinciding with dozens of airstrikes and fire belts.
The following day, residents in northern Gaza woke up to leaflets dropped by Israeli drones warning them to evacuate to what was claimed to be a “humanitarian zone” in Mawasi Khan Younis, south of Gaza.
However, the Israeli army did not give residents enough time to evacuate, quickly closing the roads connecting North Gaza Governorate and Gaza City by destroying residential buildings and blocking roads with their rubble.
Israeli forces also targeted displaced families on those roads with gunfire and shells, resulting in many casualties.
This completed the encirclement of the northern area, with Jabalia at its center, preventing entry and exit from the day after the start of this extermination.
Israeli forces have been besieging shelters and schools in Jabalia, its refugee camp, Beit Lahia, and Beit Hanoun, forcing those inside to evacuate, burning and destroying schools and shelters, separating women from men, and abducting and abusing many of them.
The Israeli army did not stop there but pursued those who insisted on staying in their homes, launching deadly airstrikes on populated residential areas in various regions, resulting in hundreds of deaths and injuries.
Israeli forces also besieged the three operating hospitals in northern Gaza: Kamal Adwan, the Indonesian, and Al-Awda, taking them completely out of service.
They targeted ambulances and civil defense vehicles, rendering them entirely unable to provide services, arrested several of their staff, and later stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, abusing the medical staff and patients inside.
All this comes amid a deliberate starvation policy adopted by Israeli forces even before the invasion began two weeks ago, completely stopping the entry of aid trucks and food supplies to North Gaza Governorate and preventing the entry of fuel and medical equipment to hospitals.
Approximately 100,000 residents who remained in their homes or buildings they evacuated to within northern Gaza suffer from dire conditions due to intense airstrikes, shelling, and drone fire, and the anticipation of the Israeli army reaching them at any moment to forcibly displace them, with extreme difficulty in obtaining food, water, or medicine.
Raed An-Nims, the spokesperson of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) in Gaza said the Israeli army is intentionally bombing and burning shelters.
The spokesperson said:
- The situation in the northern governorate of the Gaza Strip is catastrophic, and residents are urgently calling for help to save the injured.
- The immediate priority is to halt the aggression in the northern sector and allow ambulance teams to enter.
- The number of fatalities is increasing due to the inability to provide medical assistance to the injured.
- Israeli forces have been blocking the arrival of aid for the 25th consecutive day.
- Israeli forces are intentionally setting fire to shelters in the area.
Israel has now killed at least 43,061 Palestinians, including 17,210 children, 11,742 women, 1,047 medical staff, 182 journalists, 496 educators, 203 UNRWA workers, and 85 Civil Defense medics. and injured more than 101,110, largely children and women, in addition to the thousands who remain missing, largely under the rubble of bombarded homes, buildings, alleys, and streets across the coastal enclave since October 7, 2023.
