In the central Gaza Strip, three Palestinians were killed in an artillery attack targeting the Qastal Towers east of Deir al-Balah, along with three others in a bombing of an apartment in the al-Salhi Tower in the Nuseirat refugee camp. Meanwhile, two Palestinians, including a woman, were killed and others were injured in a bombing of a house in the al-Bureij refugee camp.
Four civilians, including a woman, were killed in a helicopter strike targeting a tent for displaced persons in Gaza City. Another civilian was killed and several others were injured in a drone strike targeting the vicinity of Muscat School in the al-Nafaq neighborhood, east of the city.
In the southern Gaza Strip, two children were killed and others were injured in an artillery attack on Al-Hanawi School, northwest of Khan Yunis. Two other Palestinians were killed in an attack on a tent for displaced persons in the same area. Three Palestinians were also killed by Israeli fire while waiting for aid southwest of the city.
In the northern Gaza Strip, the Israeli army killed nine Palestinians, including a woman, and wounded dozens more in artillery shelling targeting civilians waiting for aid near the Zikim site.
Two new deaths recorded, as famine expands
The Palestinian Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip announced in a statement on Thursday that two new deaths due to famine and malnutrition had been recorded in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of deaths from these causes in the Strip to 113.
In this context, the Government Media Office in Gaza warned on Thursday of a worsening famine in the Strip, stressing that it "has not been broken as is being promoted, but is rather intensifying and spreading," amid a complete closure of crossings for 145 days, preventing the entry of baby formula and humanitarian aid.
The office added in a statement that hospitals have recorded more than 115 deaths due to hunger and malnutrition, amid a near-total lack of food, water, and medicine. It explained that the Gaza Strip needs at least 500,000 bags of flour per week to avoid a "total humanitarian collapse."
The statement rejected what it described as "misleading narratives" about the improvement of the humanitarian situation, saying: "We categorically deny what some activists outside the Strip are promoting about the entry of hundreds of trucks and the breaking of the famine," considering it "a dangerous alignment with the occupation's propaganda and a deliberate distortion of the truth about the ongoing crime."
The Government Media Office called on the world's countries to "take immediate action to break the siege, permanently open the crossings, and allow the entry of baby milk and aid to more than 2.4 million people under siege in the Gaza Strip."
Since March 2, Israel has evaded further implementation of a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement with Hamas, closing Gaza's crossings to aid trucks stacked along the border.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel, with American support, has continued its genocidal war in Gaza, leaving more than 202,000 Palestinians dead or wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 9,000 missing, in addition to hundreds of thousands of displaced persons and a famine that has claimed the lives of many.
