At dawn on Wednesday, nine Palestinians, including children, were killed and dozens were injured in an Israeli bombardment on the city of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. Five citizens were also killed and several others were injured in a bombardment on a house in the town of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip. In addition, a woman was killed and another was injured in a bombardment on houses in the town of Abasan al-Kabira, a martyr in Qizan al-Najjar, and two people were injured in a bombardment on a house in the center of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip.
Three people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in the Al-Nasr neighborhood of Gaza City, while another person was killed in an airstrike targeting a tent housing displaced persons west of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.
This came shortly after the army warned thousands of patients and displaced people to evacuate areas west of Gaza City, including Al-Shifa Hospital and several shelters.
On Wednesday evening, the Israeli army warned Palestinians in Blocks 633, 706, 785, 786, and 787 in the southern Rimal neighborhood to evacuate immediately. The army claimed there was "terrorist activity" by Hamas within these buildings, vowing to "attack the area with great force."
The warning includes Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip, where thousands of patients and injured are housed, as well as shelters at the Islamic University. It also includes the Beach School Complex, Al-Karmel School, Mustafa Hafez School, and Al-Furqan School, which house hundreds of thousands of displaced people from the northern and eastern Gaza Strip.
On Wednesday, the Ministry of Interior in the Gaza Strip held Israel responsible for the "crime of displacing citizens" from their areas, in violation of international law, as part of the ongoing genocide that has been taking place for 19 months.
In a statement commenting on the Israeli army's warning to evacuate several areas and facilities housing patients and displaced persons in Gaza, it said, "We hold the Israeli occupation responsible for this crime of displacing citizens from their homes and forcing them to leave without any justification, in a crime that violates all rules of international law."
The Ministry of Interior in Gaza confirmed that "the allegations made by the occupation army in its announcement threatening citizens are false and baseless." It emphasized that these Israeli allegations are an attempt "to justify the crime of displacing civilians from their homes as part of the occupation's policy of pressuring civilians."
During the day and early morning hours of Wednesday, the Israeli army killed a total of 71 Palestinians, including 50 in Jabalia (north), as Israeli aircraft launched a series of intensive raids on the town and its camp.
Since the start of Trump's tour of the region on Tuesday, the Israeli military has killed 118 Palestinians in Gaza, including children, women, and a journalist. It has also directly bombed two hospitals, along with six schools and three centers housing displaced persons, in what has been described as the most violent escalation in weeks.
Extermination by starvation and warning of aid damage
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) warned on Wednesday that life-saving humanitarian aid stuck in warehouses outside the Gaza Strip is spoiling due to Israel's closure of the crossings and its denial of entry since March 2, in an attempt to perpetuate the genocide it has been perpetrating for 19 months.
The UN agency said in a post on its Facebook account: "Humanitarian aid, including food, hygiene supplies, medicine, and shelter materials, is stuck in warehouses outside the Gaza Strip due to the blockade." It explained that the "life-saving" aid is now "at risk of spoilage" with the closure of the crossings, adding: "Food people can't eat, medicines they can't use."
UNRWA confirmed that its teams and trucks are "ready to deliver aid to those most in need" in Gaza, while Sam Rose, acting director of UNRWA affairs in Gaza, said: "Half a million people in the Gaza Strip are suffering from severe hunger."
"Behind me in this warehouse is enough flour for 200,000 people," he continued in a video posted by the UN agency on Facebook from a warehouse outside the Gaza Strip containing aid.
For its part, Hamas said on Wednesday that Israel is committing "full-fledged genocide" by using starvation against more than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, calling for urgent international and Arab intervention to stop it.
The movement added in a statement, "The fascist occupation government continues to close the Gaza Strip to all basic necessities of life, including food, medicine, water, and fuel, for more than seventy consecutive days, coinciding with an escalating barbaric Zionist aggression."
It stressed that "this scene embodies the elements of a blatant genocide committed by the occupation army in full view of the world." Hamas added in its statement: "The criminal Zionist enemy is using starvation as a weapon against more than two and a quarter million people, blatantly defying the will of the international community, the United Nations, and its organizations, which have repeatedly called for the opening of the crossings and the entry of humanitarian aid."
In a related context, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor stated that Israel's targeting of hospitals in the Gaza Strip with intense and violent airstrikes represents "one link in a chain of practices aimed at destroying the means of survival and places of last resort for the population" as part of the genocide in the Gaza Strip.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel, with full American support, has been committing genocide in Gaza, leaving approximately 173,000 Palestinians dead or wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 11,000 missing.
Israel has been blockading Gaza for 18 years, leaving approximately 1.5 million Palestinians out of a population of approximately 2.4 million homeless after their homes were destroyed in the war of extermination. The Strip is suffering from famine due to Tel Aviv's closure of the crossings to humanitarian aid
