Nasser Medical Complex reported the death of a child from Khan Yunis due to a progressive form of polio. Meanwhile, the director of Al-Shifa Medical Complex, Mohammed Abu Salmiya, confirmed that three children are at risk of death due to their progressive polio, noting that "bacteria have emerged that cause severe infections in the wounds of those infected, leading to death or amputation."
The Government Media Office in the Gaza Strip warned of an unprecedented humanitarian disaster resulting from worsening malnutrition caused by Israel's starvation policy. With 1.2 million children suffering from "acute food insecurity," 106 children have been killed since October 7, 2023.
The government office announced in a statement that the death toll from Israel's starvation policy in Gaza has risen to 235 Palestinians, including 106 children, 19 women, 75 elderly people, and 35 men (over the age of 18). It stated that "hospitals and health centers in the Gaza Strip are witnessing an unprecedented humanitarian disaster as a result of the worsening famine and malnutrition among more than 2.4 million civilians, including more than 1.2 million children."
The government office explained that "medical and humanitarian data revealed extremely serious indicators, including that 1.2 million children under 18 are suffering from severe food insecurity." It also stated that 40,000 infants under one year old are suffering from life-threatening malnutrition, while 250,000 children under five are suffering from malnutrition that "directly threatens their lives."
He stressed that these "shocking figures reflect the extent of the systematic crime committed by the occupation against civilians in Gaza, using starvation as a weapon of war in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, amounting to the crime of genocide."
The government office called on the international community, the United Nations, and human rights, humanitarian, and legal organizations to "assume their urgent responsibilities to halt this worsening humanitarian catastrophe, ensure the unrestricted flow of food and medicine, end the blockade, and immediately open the crossings to save what remains of civilian lives."
Continuous massacres
Sources in Gaza hospitals reported that 98 Palestinians were killed as a result of Israeli shelling of various areas in the Strip since dawn on Wednesday, including 37 people waiting for aid.
Earlier, medical sources in Gaza reported that the Israeli occupation forces had killed 61 Palestinians, including 14 humanitarian aid workers, and wounded others in separate attacks on the Gaza Strip since dawn on Wednesday, as part of the genocide they have been perpetrating for 22 months.
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The sources said that the army's shelling targeted displaced persons' tents, homes, aid workers, and gatherings of civilians waiting for aid in Gaza City and the central Gaza Strip.
300 homes destroyed in 3 days
In a related development, Palestinian Civil Defense spokesman in Gaza, Mahmoud Basal, said that the Israeli occupation army has been conducting a concentrated military operation in the Zeitoun neighborhood for several days, including intensive shelling and bombing of homes.
Basal continued, saying that over the past three days, the army has destroyed more than 300 homes in the neighborhood, committing massacres against a number of Palestinian families after blowing up the homes with their occupants inside. He explained that the army is carrying out the bombing operations using high-explosive bombs that destroy the surroundings of the targeted home, with the aim of inflicting maximum casualties.
He confirmed that during this short period, the army began intensively targeting inhabited residential buildings, which exceeded five floors, which spread a state of terror among their residents and forced some of them to flee. He pointed out that the targeting operations were carried out without prior warning, while the army completely besieged the southern and eastern areas of the neighborhood with shelling and bombing. He confirmed that the army is preventing civil defense crews from entering to rescue the wounded and retrieve the bodies of the martyrs, stressing that this exacerbates the humanitarian situation.
Since March 2, Israel has closed all crossings into Gaza, preventing the entry of any humanitarian aid. This has plunged the Strip into a state of famine, despite the backlog of aid trucks at its borders and the limited quantities allowed in, which do not meet the minimum needs of starving Palestinians.
Recently, the World Food Programme warned that "a third of Gaza's population has not eaten for several days," describing the humanitarian situation as "unprecedented in its levels of hunger and despair." The United Nations confirmed that Gaza needs hundreds of aid trucks daily to end the famine it is suffering from as a result of the blockade and genocide.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel, with American support, has been committing genocide in Gaza, including killing, starvation, destruction, and displacement, ignoring international calls and orders from the International Court of Justice to halt it.
The Israeli genocide left 61,722 Palestinians dead and 154,525 injured, most of them children and women. More than 9,000 people were missing, hundreds of thousands were displaced, and a famine claimed the lives of 235 people, including 106 children.
