Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Saturday that Israeli forces have killed at least 401 Palestinians and wounded 1,108 since the US-backed ceasefire was supposed to go into effect, as Israel continues violating the deal.
The Health Ministry’s statement came a day after the Israeli military bombed a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Gaza City’s Tuffah Neighborhood. Israeli shelling hit the school when families were gathered there to celebrate a wedding, and the attack killed six people, including a four-month-old baby and his father.
Israel continued launching attacks in Gaza on Sunday, killing at least three people in Gaza City’s Shujaiyya neighborhood, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA. If confirmed by the Health Ministry, it would bring the total number of people killed during the so-called ceasefire to 404.
Three women were also killed in Gaza on Sunday when a building damaged by Israel’s bombing campaign collapsed in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, which has become a common occurrence due to strong winds amid harsh winter weather. Another two Palestinians were missing under the rubble after the building collapsed, according to WAFA.
Babies have also died due to cold, as many families are living in flimsy tents that were flooded in recent heavy rain. The US and Israel are not allowing reconstruction to take place in the Hamas-controlled side of Gaza, where virtually all civilians are living, and Israel has maintained restrictions on aid entering the Strip.
“Children are losing their lives because they lack the most basic items for survival. Babies are arriving to the hospital cold, with near-death vital signs: even our best efforts are not enough. They say the war has ended, but people are still having to fight for their lives,” Bilal Abu Saada, the nursing team supervisor at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, said in a press release from Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
MSF also called for Israel to lift all restrictions on aid entering Gaza. “As Gaza is battered by heavy rains and storms, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians continue to struggle in flooded and broken makeshift tents. MSF calls on Israeli authorities to urgently allow a massive scale up of aid into the Strip,” the humanitarian charity said.
