Israeli attacks on Gaza killed at least 84 Palestinians since dawn on Wednesday, medical sources told Al Jazeera, amid Israel’s starvation blockade that has been imposed on the territory since March 2.
Heavy Israeli strikes targeted Jabalia, northern Gaza, killing about 50 people in the area. At least 10 Palestinians were reported killed by attacks on the southern city of Khan Younis.
Israel issued a forced evacuation order for an area of Gaza City, threatening it would attack the neighborhood with “great force.” The order applied to the Al Shifa Hospital, and photos show patients being taken out of the facility on hospital beds.
A day earlier, Israel used bunker-busting bombs in strikes on the courtyard of the European Hospital in Khan Younis, killing 28 people. The IDF claimed it targeted a Hamas “command and control center” under the hospital, but it didn’t provide real evidence, and an analysis from Sky News contradicted the claim.
The Israeli military also struck the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on Tuesday in a targeted assassination of journalist Hassan Aslih. The IDF took credit for the strike on the hospital and claimed Aslih of participated in the October 7 attack, but essentially acknowledged that he was a journalist since the accusation is that he “documented acts of murder, looting, and arson, posting the footage online.”
According to the Palestinian news agency WAFA, the killing of Aslih brings the total number of journalists killed by the Israeli military in Gaza since October 2023 to 213.
The latest violence in Gaza comes as Israel has maintained a total blockade on all goods entering the Strip since March 2, pushing Palestinian civilians into starvation. The World Health Organization said Tuesday that 57 children have starved to death since the blockade was imposed.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Wednesday that since Israel resumed its genocidal war on March 18, at least 2,799 Palestinians have been killed, and 7,805 were injured. The numbers account for dead and wounded Palestinians brought to hospitals and morgues.
Since October 7, 2023, the ministry’s death toll has reached 52,928, and the number of wounded has climbed to 119,846, figures that don’t account for thousands missing and presumed dead under the rubble or indirect deaths caused by the Israeli siege.
