Gaza’s Health Ministry said Thursday that Israeli attacks killed at least 24 Palestinians and wounded 112 in the previous 24-hour period as Israeli strikes continued across the Strip.
Strikes on Thursday included an attack on a school in Gaza City that’s sheltering Palestinians who have been displaced by Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign in the northern cities of Beit Lahia, Jabalia, and Beit Hanoun. Israeli troops have been forcing civilians to leave the cities under threat of death, but Israeli strikes still target the areas where they tell them to flee.
“All of the people who were in this school came from Jabalia, Beit Lahia, and Beit Hanoun, and this is not the first time the Israeli forces targeted this school,” said Al Jazeera reporter Hind Khoudary. “This is the fourth time the same school has been targeted.”
Khoudary said it was unclear how many were killed and injured in the strike, meaning the casualties counted in the Health Ministry’s death toll, which was put out about mid-day Gaza time. “We are unable to reach anyone on the ground to know what’s the story and how many people have been injured or killed,” she said.
Strikes were also reported in central Gaza, where at least four were killed by an Israeli drone strike on the Bureij refugee camp. At the al-Aqsa hospital in Deir el-Balah, a one-year-old boy died due to the lack of supplies, a result of the Israeli siege.
“A one-year-old boy has died in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital here in Deir el-Balah in the past half an hour despite his case being treatable according to the doctors we spoke to,” said Al Jazeera reporter Hani Mahmoud. “Due to the lack of medical supplies, the hospital could not do anything to save him … This is part of the silent death that is happening on an hourly basis in the Gaza Strip.”
Israeli strikes were also reported in southern Gaza, with three killed east of the city of Rafah.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said the latest violence brought its death toll since October 2023 to 43,736 and the number of wounded to 103,370. The ministry’s numbers are considered an undercount since they don’t account for Palestinians who are missing and presumed dead under the rubble or indirect deaths caused by the Israeli siege.
A group of American healthcare workers who volunteered in Gaza estimated in an open letter to President Biden in October that the US-backed Israeli bombing campaign and siege have killed at least 118,908 Palestinians, including over 60,000 who have starved to death. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, who led the letter, told Antiwar.com in a recent interview that the estimate was the bare minimum they came up with by looking at the available data.
