The Ministry of Health of the Gaza Strip, controlled by the Islamist movement Hamas, stated this Wednesday that Israeli airstrikes had killed at least 704 people, most of them women and children, in the last 24 hours.
In a statement, the ministry said the attacks caused residential buildings to collapse, in some cases killing dozens of residents.
Two families lost a total of 47 members in a destroyed house in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, the ministry said.
Also in southern Gaza, in Khan Younis, an attack on a four-story building killed at least 32 people, including 13 members of a single family, said Ammar al-Butta, a family member who survived the attack.
About 100 people were sheltering in the building, including many who had been evacuated from Gaza City in the north of the enclave, Ammar al-Butta said.
“We thought our area would be safe,” al-Butta continued to the Associated Press (AP) news agency.
This is because, on October 13, Israel issued a “displacement order” for around 1.1 million people from the northern Gaza Strip to the south, threatening to launch a ground incursion into Palestinian territory.
Another attack destroyed a busy market in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, witnesses told the AP.
In Gaza City, at least 19 people were killed when an airstrike hit a house, according to survivors, who said dozens more remained trapped.
On Tuesday, the ministry announced that 5,791 people, the vast majority of them civilians, including more than 2,300 children, had been killed since October 7, when attacks on Gaza began, in retaliation for an offensive carried out by Hamas against Israel.
On the same day, the regional director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for the Middle East and North Africa, Adele Khodr, said that at least 2,360 children had been killed and 5,364 injured.
On October 7, Hamas launched a surprise attack on southern Israel with the launch of thousands of rockets and a raid by armed militiamen, resulting in the deaths of more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians, and the capture of 220 hostages.
In response, Israel declared war on Hamas, a movement that has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007 and is classified as terrorist by the European Union and the United States, and imposed a total siege on the territory, cutting off the supply of water, fuel and electricity. .
Israel has authorized the passage of three columns of humanitarian aid trucks since Saturday, but Gaza authorities and international organizations say the quantities are far from what is necessary.
Source: TSF
