Gaza’s Health Ministry said Sunday that Israeli attacks killed at least 88 Palestinians and wounded 208 over the previous 24-hour period as Israel has stepped up its bombing of the besieged enclave in recent days.
Al Jazeera reported on Sunday that Israeli attacks across Gaza killed over 200 Palestinians over the past three days. “We are seeing women and children making up the vast majority of casualties,” said Hani Mahmoud, an Al Jazeera journalist reporting from Deir el-Balah, central Gaza.
Also on Sunday, an eighth Palestinian baby died of hypothermia due to exposure from living in a tent. “He died because of the very cold weather. He slept next to me and in the morning I found him frozen and dead. I don’t know what to say,” the baby’s mother told Al Jazeera.
Israeli strikes on Sunday included a drone strike near the southern city of Khan Younis that killed at least five Palestinians. The Palestinian news agency WAFA reported at least nine Palestinians were killed by Israeli shelling in central and northern Gaza.
Since Thursday, Israel has significantly stepped up attacks on the Gaza Governorate, which includes Gaza City, raising fears that the Israeli military is moving its ethnic cleansing campaign, known as the “general’s plan,” further south.
Since early October, the IDF has been conducting ethnic cleansing in the North Gaza Governorate, which includes the cities of Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, and Jabalia. The campaign involved a total siege and orders for all civilians to leave under the threat of death, whether by bombing, shooting, or starvation. IDF soldiers have also been demolishing every building in sight, so civilians have nowhere to return.
The general’s plan aims to cleanse all Palestinians from both North Gaza and Gaza Governorates so none remain north of the Netzarim Corridor, a strip of land where the IDF has demolished most buildings and established military bases. Completing the ethnic cleansing will likely pave the way for the establishment of Jewish settlements in northern Gaza.
WAFA reported that 45 Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks in the North Gaza Governorate on Saturday.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said Sunday that the latest violence had brought its death toll since October 2023 to 45,805 and the number of wounded to 109,064. The ministry’s numbers don’t include the thousands of Palestinians missing and presumed dead under the rubble or indirect deaths caused by the US-backed Israeli siege.
In October, a group of American healthcare workers who volunteered in Gaza estimated in an open letter to President Biden that the US-backed Israeli onslaught has killed at least 118,908 Palestinians, a total that includes indirect deaths caused by the Israeli siege. 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.
