Tel Aviv carried out several attacks across the Gaza Strip this weekend. On Saturday, Gaza’s Health Ministry said more than 100 Palestinians were killed, along with 169 others wounded, in 24 hours amid various strikes. This was the deadliest day in the Strip since the June 8 massacre on the Nuseirat refugee camp, which slaughtered at least 274 Palestinians and wounded hundreds more. A UN facility was hit on Sunday, killing at least four people.
On Friday, the IDF bombarded areas in southern Gaza near the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) base at the al-Mawasi camp, a location Tel Aviv claimed was a safe zone for displaced Palestinians following its invasion of Rafah. Palestinian officials say two Israeli strikes killed a minimum of 25 people and wounded 50 others, the Associated Press reported. The victims were among hundreds of Palestinians sheltering in tents outside the ICRC office.
Witnesses whose family members were slaughtered in the bombing told AP that the IDF fired a second volley that killed people making their way out of their tents. The ICRC denounced the mass killing at the camp and noted the warring parties were aware of the location of its humanitarian office, which was also struck during the attack.
“Firing so dangerously close to humanitarian structures, of whose locations the parties to the conflict are aware and which are clearly marked with Red Cross emblems, puts the lives of civilians and Red Cross staff at risk,” an ICRC statement reads. It added, “The strike damaged the structure of the ICRC office, which is surrounded by hundreds of displaced civilians living in tents, including many of our Palestinian colleagues.”
A day later, Al Jazeera documented further assaults on the al-Mawasi camp with Tareq Abu Azzoum, one of the outlet’s correspondents on the ground, reporting “Witnesses said Israeli tanks carried out a sudden and unexpected incursion in al-Mawasi, launching a number of artillery shells towards the evacuation centers and makeshift tents… The entire area of al-Mawasi is an evacuation center. It’s a very tiny strip of land where more than 100,000 Palestinians have been taking refuge. It’s the place where field hospitals have been established and it’s a center for humanitarian organizations.”
In northern Gaza, on Saturday, at least 43 more Palestinians were murdered by Israeli attacks on the Shati refugee camp as well as Gaza City’s Tuffah neighborhood. Abu Azzoum said a residential area in the Shati refugee camp was targeted, another location where displaced Palestinians from the north were told they could seek refuge.
“Rescuers with the help of civilians are trying to sift through the rubble to find survivors… The casualties arriving at Al-Aqsa hospital are surging,” he said. The head of Gaza’s Government Media Office told the outlet that, in Shati, 24 people were killed in 7 homes. Gaza’s Civil Defense reported recovering 19 bodies from Tuffah.
On Sunday, eight Palestinians were killed and multiple others wounded in Gaza City near an aid center, sheltering hundreds of people, that was the primary headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in the besieged enclave. The air strike hit the compound’s main gate. This facility is used to distribute the miniscule amount of aid that reaches the Strip.
According to UNRWA, since the start of the Gaza onslaught, 188 UN facilities have been targeted during 445 Israeli bombing raids killing more than 500 displaced Palestinians and wounding more than 1,500. Additionally, the IDF has murdered a record 193 UN workers.
In an X post, the IDF took credit for the “precise strike” on the UNRWA aid center but blamed Hamas and Islamic Jihad, claiming it has become a base of their operations without providing evidence.
Over the last several days, Israeli tanks have advanced further into the western and northern parts of Rafah, with the southern Gazan city’s residents saying the pace of Israeli operations is accelerating. Reuters reports the IDF is moving toward a complete capture of the city, where approximately 1.5 million Palestinians had been displaced throughout the first seven months of the genocidal war.
More than a million people have been displaced from Rafah since the IDF seized the vital Rafah border crossing with Egypt on May 7 and subsequently destroyed it, deliberately exacerbating the already catastrophic humanitarian crisis caused by the massive bombing campaign and its concomitant starvation siege. The director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital said Saturday that four children starved to death this week. “We lost a child in the nursery department of the hospital during the past few hours. He is the fourth child to die in the hospital in the last week due to malnutrition,” he told a news conference.
“We’ve seen massive displacement over the last weeks and months, and we know that combination and the heat can cause a rise in diseases,” the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Richard Peeperkorn warned. “We have water contamination because of hot water, and we will have much more food spoilage because of the high temperature. We will get insect mosquitoes and flies, dehydration, heat stroke.” The WHO has demanded the Rafah border crossing be reopened to facilitate aid shipments as well as permit the medical evacuation of at least 10,000 wounded and maimed Palestinians requiring treatment abroad.
During an interview with Punchbowl News, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Israel is not purposely killing or starving civilians in Gaza, calling the allegation a “blood libel against the Jewish people.” Since October, the IDF has slaughtered 37,598 Palestinian Muslims and Christians, including 15,000 children, and over 86,000 more have been wounded. The UN says the IDF has destroyed more than half of all buildings in Gaza. Beneath that rubble, at least 10,000 Palestinians are said to be missing or presumed dead.
Connor Freeman is the assistant editor and a writer at the Libertarian Institute, primarily covering foreign policy. He is a co-host on the Conflicts of Interest podcast. His writing has been featured in media outlets such as Antiwar.com, Counterpunch, and the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. He has also appeared on Liberty Weekly, Around the Empire, and Parallax Views. You can follow him on Twitter @FreemansMind96.
