46 more killed in Gaza as Israeli attack continues

Gaza City, Palestine - At least 46 more Palestinians were killed and 65 others injured over the last 24 hours, as Israel continued its onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip, the territory’s Health Ministry said on Saturday.

“The Israeli occupation (forces) committed four massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, leaving 46 martyrs and 65 injured during the past 24 hours,” a ministry statement said.

“Many people are still trapped under rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them,” it added.

Flouting the International Court of Justice’s provisional ruling, Israel continues its onslaught on the Gaza Strip where at least 33,137 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and 75,815 injured since October 7, 2023, according to Palestinian health authorities. Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Hamas, which Tel Aviv says killed nearly 1,200 people.

The Israeli war on Gaza has pushed 85 per cent of the territory’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60 per cent of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Jordan urged the opening of all land crossings into the Gaza Strip on Friday and an end to starvation in the besieged enclave which has been under a relentless onslaught by the Israeli army for more than six months.

“All land crossings to Gaza must be opened. A ceasefire must begin now,”' Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi wrote on X. “'UN must be in charge of all humanitarian operations and have full access.”

Safadi noted that ‘anything short of that’ll be another lie and won’t even begin to address the catastrophe Israel has created’, stressing that '’starvation of Gazans must end’.

The Israeli army, meanwhile, acknowledged on Friday that it killed a settler by fire from one of its helicopters in the Gaza Strip on October 7.

“According to the investigation, amid battles that took place in southern Israel on October 7, an IAF helicopter opened fire against a car with several terrorists in it,”' the Times of Israeli newspaper cited a military statement.

“It was later revealed, based on eyewitnesses and surveillance camera footage, that the vehicle also had Israeli hostages in it,” said the newspaper.