66 more Palestinians killed in Gaza
At least 66 more Palestinians were killed and 138 others injured over the last 24 hours as Israel continues its onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip, the territory’s Health Ministry said on Sunday.
“The Israeli occupation (forces) committed seven massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, leaving 66 martyrs and 138 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 a provisional ruling by the International Court of Justice, Israel continues its onslaught on the Gaza Strip where at least 34,454 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and 77,575 injured since October 7, according to Palestinian health authorities.
Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Palestinian resistance group 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.
Hostilities have continued unabated, however, and aid deliveries remain woefully insufficient to address the humanitarian catastrophe.
Meanwhile in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza Strip, several Palestinians were reportedly killed and injured on Saturday in an Israeli airstrike on a house.
Israeli aircraft targeted a house belonging to the Ashour family in the Nasr neighbourhood, resulting in the death and injury of several Palestinians, witnesses told Anadolu.
The airstrike also caused extensive damage to nearby homes, which have been housing a number of displaced individuals, they said.
The witnesses said that medical and civil defence teams are still conducting rescue operations to extract victims and injured individuals from the rubble of the targeted house.
Israel insists on launching a ground offensive in Rafah, claiming that it is ‘the last stronghold of Hamas’.