Gaza’s Health Ministry said Thursday that Israeli forces killed 78 Palestinians and injured 214 in the previous 48-hour period as Israeli strikes continued across the Gaza Strip.
One strike on Thursday targeted a school-turned-shelter in the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza. At least 12 Palestinians were killed and 30 were wounded in the attack on the Shati Elementary Boys School, which is affiliated with the UN’s Palestinian relief agency, UNRWA.
Later in the day, Al Jazeera reported that at least 52 Palestinians were killed in Gaza on Thursday, including 42 in the north, where Israeli forces are carrying out an ethnic cleansing campaign.
Reuters reported that dozens of Palestinian families were pushed out of Beit Lahia, one of the cities where the ethnic cleansing campaign has been focused. Israeli forces have been destroying homes in Beit Lahia to ensure Palestinians don’t return.
“After they displaced most or all of the people in Jabalia, now they are bombing everywhere, killing people on the roads and inside their houses to force everyone out,” a displaced Palestinian man told Reuters.
In southern Gaza, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported three children were killed by an Israeli strike in Rafah.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said that the latest violence brought its death toll since October 2023 to 43,469 and the number of wounded to 102,561. The ministry only counts bodies 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 said.
A group of American healthcare workers who volunteered in Gaza have estimated the US-backed Israeli bombing campaign and siege has killed at least 118,908 Palestinians, including over 60,000 who have starved to death.