The Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip announced on Thursday that the death toll from the war of extermination has risen to 53,762 martyrs and 122,197 wounded since October 7, 2023.
The ministry said in a statement that "107 martyrs and 247 wounded people arrived at Gaza Strip hospitals over the past 24 hours," as a result of the ongoing Israeli airstrikes.
Targeting tents and homes
Over the past few hours, the Israeli occupation army has bombed homes and tents housing displaced persons in several areas of the Gaza Strip, while civil defense crews continue to recover bodies from under the rubble of homes destroyed by the bombing, according to eyewitnesses.
The Palestinian News Agency, WAFA, reported that 10 Palestinians were killed, including 9 members of one family, and others were injured when the Israeli occupation bombed a barracks housing displaced persons in the town of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
Two Palestinians were also killed when the occupation forces bombed a tent in the Friendship Camp, south of Deir al-Balah.
Wafa added that five other Palestinians were killed and several others injured when the occupation forces bombed a house in the Saftawi area, northwest of Gaza.
Occupation forces stormed the courtyard of Al-Awda Hospital in Tal al-Zaatar (north), firing heavily in the area. The occupation forces also set fire to the tents of displaced people inside the hospital courtyard.
Occupation aircraft also targeted two homes in the Zarqa area in the northern Gaza Strip, killing all those inside.
The occupation also launched an airstrike on a house in the Tel al-Zaatar area of Jabalia camp, north of the Gaza Strip, causing extensive damage. Wafa reported that five Palestinians from one family were killed in an Israeli drone strike on Jabalia.
Civil defense crews were able to extinguish a massive fire that broke out in the Al-Ragheb Tower, located in the Al-Karama area, northwest of Gaza, after it was directly targeted by the occupation forces.
In the southern Gaza Strip, the occupation army carried out bombing operations against a number of residential buildings east of the town of Al-Qarara, northeast of Khan Yunis.
16,000 children martyred
In the same context, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip said in a statement on Thursday that the number of children killed by the occupation army since October 7, 2023, has reached "16,503 children, in a shocking statistic that embodies the extent of the direct and systematic targeting of the most vulnerable and innocent segments of society."
According to the statement, the age groups of child martyrs were distributed as follows: 916 were infants (less than one year old), 4,365 were children between 1-5 years old, 6,101 were children between 6-12 years old, and 5,124 were boys between 13-17 years old.
The ministry stated that "the shocking figures do not only reflect the innocent lives lost, but also the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe and the depth of the crime committed against an entire generation that was supposed to receive protection, care, and education."
She added that children have become "targets for Israeli aircraft missiles and tank shells."
The ministry called on the international community, human rights bodies, and humanitarian organizations to "assume their legal and moral responsibilities, take urgent action to halt the aggression, and hold Israeli leaders accountable for their crimes against children and defenseless civilians."
Aid entry
Meanwhile, Ismail al-Thawabta, director general of the government media office in Gaza, said on Wednesday that "87 trucks carrying various types of aid have entered the Gaza Strip so far (as of 21:55 GMT), for the first time in 81 days of the Israeli closure."
Al-Thawabta explained that this aid "was allocated to a number of international and civil society organizations, as part of efforts to distribute it to the Palestinian people to meet some of their urgent humanitarian needs."
Later, the government media office confirmed in a statement that 87 aid trucks had entered the Gaza Strip.
In turn, Nahed Shehaibar, head of the Gaza Private Transport Companies Association, said that "the number of aid trucks that arrived in the Strip reached 92," a slight difference from the number announced by the government media office.
"Among the trucks, 75 trucks carrying flour entered the Gaza Strip for bakeries in the central and southern governorates," Shehaiber added, via the Kerem Shalom crossing in the southern Gaza Strip.
He confirmed "there is no coordination for the entry of aid trucks into the Gaza and northern governorates via the Netzarim axis, as the army prevents truck traffic through it." He explained that among the total number of trucks, "there are 12 trucks loaded with nutritional supplements for children for the benefit of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), whose cargo was unloaded in the city of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip."
On Wednesday, the government office in Gaza accused Israel of violating its commitments and obligations by continuing to prevent the entry of aid through the Kerem Shalom crossing, south of the Strip, for the third day.
Since March 2, Israel has continued its policy of systematically starving approximately 2.4 million Palestinians in Gaza by closing the crossings to aid supplies piling up at the border, pushing the Strip into a state of famine and claiming many lives.
With full American support, Israel has been committing genocidal crimes in Gaza since October 7, 2023, leaving more than 175,000 Palestinians dead or wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 11,000 missing, in addition to hundreds of thousands displaced.
