On Tuesday, Day 263 of the ongoing Israeli genocide of the Palestinians in the devastated and destroyed Gaza Strip, Israeli missiles and shells killed and injured scores of Palestinians across the besieged coastal enclave.
Late on Tuesday night, at least ten Palestinians, including children and women, were killed and many were injured when the army fired a missile at a home for Palestinians from the Abu Awwad family, in Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza.
Locals and medics continue to look for potential victims and survivors under the rubble of the bombarded home.
The army also wired and detonated many homes in the southwestern area of Gaza City and the Zeitoun neighborhood.
Medical sources said Palestinian medics and rescue teams located the corpses of many Palestinians, and evacuated scores of wounded residents, after the army bombarded the Abdul-Fattah Hammoud School in the Daraj neighborhood, in Gaza City, the Asma’ neighborhood in the Shati’s refugee camp, and a home for the Zamily family in Gaza city’s Sheja’eyya neighborhood.
The army also fired dozens of artillery shells and detonated entire residential blocks, in addition to targeting make-shift shelters and schools used by displaced families, across the Gaza Strip.
Media sources said the Palestinians in the Namsawi neighborhood in Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, had to leave their homes after the army said it intended to target the area with missiles and shells. The army also fired artillery shells at the northeastern areas of Khan Younis city.
In Rafah, in Gaza’s southmost part, the army fired barrages of missiles and artillery shells at the Saudi and the Tal Al-Sultan neighborhoods, west of the city, causing many casualties.
In a briefing in Geneva, UNRWA’s Commissioner Philipe Lazzarini said: “Maybe just one or two comments on children. You saw that yesterday also an international organization, I think Save the Children, issued a report on children. Again, the figures are quite staggering, they are talking about 4,000 children missing and 17,000 being unaccompanied. So more than 20,000”
Lazzarini added: “And you add this to the report that 14,000 children have been killed since the beginning of the war. And you take into consideration that basically, we have children losing one leg or two legs on average every ten days. This gives you an idea of the scope of the type of childhood a child can have in Gaza.”
“We have suffered from the absence of attention given to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict over the last ten years. Our resources have eroded, and we have more and more a mismatch with what we are expected to deliver. And we should never, never forget that UNRWA is unique because we are asked to provide government-like services, but we completely depend on the voluntary contribution of the member states.”
“And then we had 7 October with extraordinary, staggering needs in the Gaza Strip for which, I have to say, we had good support. But after that, we had 26 January: the allegations with our 12 staff, a temporary pause by a number of countries. And you know the story, two months later the Catherine Colonna report has been fully published. Since all the donors have come back, we have some new donors, we have a strong generosity from the public. But all this does not compensate for the suspension of our main donor, the United States. And even if we would have the United States, we would definitely not be on a sustainable path when it comes to predictable funding for the Agency.”
It is worth noting that a Palestinian child, Azzam Sha’er, has died due to malnutrition due to the continued Israeli bombings and strict siege on the coastal region.
The Palestinian Health Ministry called for ending the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people and for the immediate protection of civilians, medical staff, and medical facilities.
It said medical centers in the Gaza Strip suffer severe shortages of medical supplies, including emergency, anesthesia, Intensive Care, X-ray, MRI, and Ct-Scan, and added that it cannot provide services to people with chronic conditions, cancer, liver diseases, and that about 1000 patients who require dialysis are unable to receive this service.
The Health Ministry also said that pregnant women, newborn babies, children, and seniors are among the various sectors of society that require medical attention and treatment, are not receiving those services due to the massive destruction of healthcare facilities, the lack of basic medical supplies due to the siege, ongoing bombings, and massive destruction.
Israel has now killed at least 37.658 Palestinians and injured more than 86.237, mostly women and children (at least 14.000 children), in addition to the thousands who remain missing, largely under the rubble of bombarded homes and buildings in various parts of the destroyed Gaza Strip, since October 7, 2023.
