On Wednesday, the 100th day since the resumption of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, medical sources in the besieged enclave reported that 31 Palestinians were killed by Israeli airstrikes on Wednesday alone, including ten individuals who had been waiting for humanitarian aid.
*This is an update from Wednesday’s earlier report.
Disturbing footage reveals Israeli forces intensively opening fire on starving civilians trying to obtain humanitarian aid at an alleged Israel-US distribution point near the Netzarim separation line in the central Gaza Strip.
On Wednesday evening, a female child and a man were killed, and many Palestinians injured, in an Israeli bombing of a home, northeast of the Nuseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza.
An Israeli airstrike struck the premises of the historic Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza City, which had been serving as a refuge for hundreds of displaced Palestinians, including both Christians and Muslims, resulting in the killing of at least 18 civilians, among them children.
Israeli forces previously bombed the St. Porphyrius Church in October 2023, killing eight civilians.
The Israeli occupation army claimed the strike targeted what it called a nearby “Hamas command post,” though it acknowledged that the church compound was damaged in the process.
The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem denounced the bombing as a war crime, emphasizing that the church had been providing sanctuary to civilians who had already been uprooted by ongoing genocide.
(this video is from October 19, 2023)
Testimonies from Palestinians, who were taking shelter in the Greek Orthodox church (Saint Porphyrius Orthodox Church) in #Gaza, one of the oldest churches in the world. pic.twitter.com/0I0oqfJShn
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) October 19, 2023
Witnesses at the scene reported extensive destruction, with portions of the ancient church collapsing under the force of the blast.
Rescue teams scrambled to locate and recover individuals trapped beneath the debris. The bombing has provoked widespread international outcry and intensified calls for the safeguarding of civilian sites and places of worship amid the relentless escalation.
The child Ahlam Naser, just 1 year old, was killed in an Israeli artillery shelling on Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip.
According to health officials, the total number of Palestinians killed since Tuesday morning has reached 89, with 56 of them targeted while awaiting aid distributions in Nuseirat and Rafah in central and southern Gaza.
This baby, Karma Shehadeh, was killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting his family’s home in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
On the humanitarian front, UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric warned that life-saving operations in Gaza would cease if Israel continues to block the entry of fuel into the territory. He cautioned that children could die of dehydration if fuel access is not restored.
The UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Virginia Gamba, said Wednesday that the international community must not remain passive in the face of atrocities committed against children worldwide—particularly in Gaza.
In a briefing to the UN Security Council on the Secretary-General’s latest report on children and armed conflict, Gamba stated that the level of destruction and suffering endured by children in Gaza surpasses all humanitarian thresholds. She emphasized that “there is no justification for denying children their right to a dignified life, including access to food, healthcare, and security.”
Gamba called on Israel, the occupying power, to allow humanitarian aid to flow rapidly and without obstruction to civilians in the Gaza Strip. She noted that the highest number of grave violations documented last year occurred in the occupied Palestinian territory, alongside the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Nigeria, and Haiti.
Meanwhile, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian fighters killed and injured many Israeli soldiers in a coordinated ambush.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged Wednesday as a profoundly difficult day for Israelis, following the deaths of seven soldiers during combat in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military spokesperson, Ephraim Defrin , stated earlier in the day that the army “failed in a rescue operation aimed at retrieving troops caught in an explosion in Khan Younis, located in southern Gaza,” resulting in the death of seven soldiers and several injuries.
At 8:30 pm, a child and a civilian were killed as a result of Israeli occupation forces’ shelling of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza Strip when the Israeli occupation forces targeted a house northeast of the Nuseirat camp.
At around 5:30 pm, five Palestinian citizens were killed and others injured when Israeli warplanes bombed a house in Gaza City .
A Wafa news correspondent reported that the Israeli occupation forces bombed the home of the Talmis family in the Al-Karama area, northwest of Gaza City, killing five citizens and wounding others.
Four Palestinian citizens were killed and others were injured when Israeli drones bombed the home of the Aqeelan family on Al-Hayya Street in Al-Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City.
In the same context, a number of children were injured, with injuries ranging from moderate to serious, in an Israeli airstrike near Al-Khalidi Mosque in Gaza City, while the Israeli occupation targeted a house in the center of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip .
Rescue teams are still recovering the bodies of Palestinians from under the rubble following an Israeli airstrike on a School sheltering displaced civilians in Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, Gaza City.
At 3:20 pm, Wafa news reported that 15 Palestinian citizens were killed by Israeli airstrikes in Khan Yunis and Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, following Israeli shelling, while one person was killed in the Israeli shelling of citizens on Al-Thalathini Street in Gaza City.
Sources reported that two citizens were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the northern Gaza Strip.
The World Food Programme (WFP) announced Wednesday that only 9,000 tons of food aid have been sent to the Gaza Strip since May 19, an amount “less than the food required for one day” for the population of the Strip.
The UN program said in a post on Wednesday that this aid “is less than the amount of food required for one day, not a month, for the entire population of the Gaza Strip.” The statement added that the organization is “ready to expand the scope of work in the besieged sector, and we need access and better conditions to carry out our duties safely,” stressing that “the time has come to act.”
Also Wednesday, medical sources reported that the remaining hospitals operating in the Gaza Strip are at risk of shutting down at any moment, with severe overcrowding in the inpatient, intensive care, and emergency departments, and an increase in critical injuries that exceed the capacity.
Sources said that only 45 operating rooms are operational, out of a total of 312, with limited capacity. This makes it difficult to perform urgent and complex surgical procedures, while hospitals are suffering from a severe shortage of medicines and medical supplies, particularly affecting services for cancer and heart patients.
The Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said that the situation in the Gaza Strip, which is being subjected to genocide by Israel, is “absolutely horrific .”
Lazzarini explained in a press statement on Wednesday that international interest in Gaza has declined significantly since Israel began its attacks on Iran on June 13 .
He added that Israeli attacks are being launched daily in the Gaza Strip, and that citizens are still being displaced on a continuous basis and feel completely besieged by the aid system imposed by Tel Aviv .
“People there are asking themselves: ‘Should I let my family starve to death? Or risk my life to reach humanitarian aid?’ We are facing a horrific situation in Gaza ,” Lazzarini continued.
He added, “We urgently need to de-escalate the situation in a region that cannot afford a new conflict. I hope that the ceasefire will allow us to refocus on reaching a truce in Gaza, releasing prisoners, lifting the blockade, and ensuring widespread and uninterrupted humanitarian aid .”
Since Israel violated the mediated ceasefire agreement on March 18, 2025, the army has killed more than 5,759 Palestinians and injured at least 19,807.
Since the beginning of this year, the army has killed more than 6,347 Palestinians, including 1,265 children, 322 women, 235 elderly and 37 journalists.
The number of slain Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, is more than 56,156, including at least 16,507 children, 9,803 women, 254 journalists, and injured more than 132,239, largely children, women and elderly, in addition to more than 9000 missing Palestinians, under the rubble in various parts of the devastated, destroyed and besieged Gaza Strip.
