Gaza’s Health Ministry said Thursday that Israeli attacks over the previous 24-hour period killed 17 Palestinians and injured 77, as health officials are warning that children are starving under the US-backed Israeli blockade.
The Health Ministry said the body of one Palestinian killed in previous Israeli strikes was also recovered from the rubble. Its numbers account for dead and wounded Palestinians brought to hospitals and morgues.
“There are still a number of victims under the rubble and on the streets, and ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them,” the ministry wrote on Telegram.
The Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that at least three people, including one child, were killed by Israeli drone attacks on Gaza City. A young girl was also killed by Israeli attacks on Jabalia, northern Gaza.
WAFA also reported that Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks in the southern city of Rafah and in Deir el-Balah, which is located in central Gaza.
The latest violence in Gaza comes after 60 days of Israel blocking humanitarian aid and all other goods from entering the Strip. Michael Ryan, deputy director of the World Health Organization, called what Israel is doing an “abomination.”
“We are breaking the bodies and minds of the children of Gaza. We are starving the children of Gaza. We are complicit,” Ryan told reporters in Geneva.
The Palestinian relief agency, UNRWA, said it had nearly 3,000 trucks with humanitarian aid ready to enter Gaza. “One million children depend on aid, and without it, their lives are in danger. The crossings must reopen, and the siege must be lifted,” UNRWA said.
Dr Munir al-Bursh, director of Gaza’s Health Ministry, said Thursday that 92 percent of children and breastfeeding mothers in Gaza suffer from severe malnutrition and called for the UN to declare a famine.
“We call on the United Nations to issue an official declaration of famine in Gaza, given that field indicators and medical and humanitarian data confirm that international conditions for this have been met,” al-Bursh said.
The Health Ministry also said on Thursday that since Israel resumed its genocidal war on March 18, which it did with full US support, it has recorded the deaths of 2,326 Palestinians and 6,050 injuries.
Since October 7, 2023, the ministry’s death toll has reached 52,418, and the number of wounded has climbed to 118,091, figures that don’t account for thousands missing and presumed dead under the rubble or indirect deaths caused by the Israeli siege.
