Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Tuesday that Israeli forces killed at least 72 Palestinians and wounded 376 over the previous 24-hour period as US-backed Israeli strikes and massacres of aid seekers continue.
The Health Ministry said that another five bodies were recovered from the rubble. “A number of victims are still under the rubble and on the streets, where ambulance and civil defense crews are unable to reach them at this time,” the ministry wrote on Telegram.
Israeli strikes on Tuesday included an airstrike in Gaza City, which killed five Palestinians, including three children. According to the Palestinian news agency WAFA, the strike targeted a group of people near a mosque in the Zeitoun neighborhood.
Israeli strikes also targeted Khan Younis, southern Gaza, and the al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. WAFA reported seven Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on the two areas.
The IDF continued its ground assault in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, and raided a residence of World Health Organization (WHO) workers. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the residence was struck by three airstrikes before it was raided.
“The Israeli military entered the premises, forcing women and children to evacuate on foot toward Al-Mawasi amid active conflict,” Ghebreyesus said, according to Middle East Eye. The WHO chief added that the men in the residence were stripped, interrogated, and screened at gunpoint.
Medical sources told Al Jazeera that at least 26 aid seekers were killed by Israeli forces on Tuesday. The Health Ministry said in its daily update, which it releases about midday Gaza time, that at least six aid seekers were killed over the previous 24 hours.
The ministry said that since the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began operating in Gaza, at least 1,026 aid seekers have been killed and 6,563 have been wounded. The UN put out a higher death toll on Tuesday, saying 1,054 aid seekers have been killed.
“As of July 21, we have recorded 1,054 people killed in Gaza while trying to get food; 766 of them were killed in the vicinity of GHF sites and 288 near UN and other humanitarian organisations’ aid convoys,” UN human rights office spokesman Thameen Al-Kheetan said, according to Al Jazeera.
The Health Ministry said that the latest violence has brought its death toll since October 7, 2023, to 59,106, and the number of wounded to 142,511. Studies have found that the ministry’s numbers are likely a significant undercount.
