The Israeli occupation continued its ongoing aggression against the Gaza Strip for the 172nd day in a row, causing massive destruction that targeted every aspect of life in the enclave.
5,881 students have been killed and 9,899 wounded in Gaza and the occupied West Bank by Israeli attacks since 7 October, the Palestinian Ministry of Education revealed.
In Gaza, 5,826 have been killed and 9,570 wounded, while in the occupied West Bank, 55 students have been killed and 329 injured. 103 others were detained in the West Bank as well.
The ministry added that 264 teachers and school administrators have been killed and 960 injured in Gaza, while six have been injured and more than 73 arrested in the occupied West Bank.
The ministry pointed out that 286 government schools and 65 UNRWA-run schools were bombed and vandalized in the Gaza Strip; 111 of them were severely damaged, and 40 schools were completely destroyed, while 57 schools were stormed and vandalized in the West Bank.
133 government schools were also used as shelter centres in the Gaza Strip, the statement reads.
The Ministry confirmed that 620,000 students in the Gaza Strip are still deprived of enrolling in their schools since the beginning of the aggression, while most of the students suffer from psychological trauma and face difficult health conditions.
The Israeli killing and wounding of thousands of Palestinian students is a flagrant violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which guarantees their protection in times of conflict. The systematic destruction of schools and educational institutions constitutes a violation of the right to education as guaranteed in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that the death toll since the start of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip has risen to 32,414 Palestinians, and 74,787 were wounded, 73 percent of whom are women and children.
The Ministry said that in the past 24 hours alone, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed 8 massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, leaving 81 dead and 93 wounded, while a number of victims are still under rubble and on the roads, as ambulance and civil defence crews cannot reach them.
According to the government office in the Gaza Strip; the IOF has committed more than 2,848 massacres since October 7, where 14,280 children, 9,340 women, 364 medical personnel, 48 civil defence personnel, and 136 journalists were killed.
It added that the number of missing persons reached 7,000, 72 percent of whom were children and women.
The number of those arrested during the war was 269 medical personnel and 12 journalists.
It added that around 17,000 Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip are currently living without their families since the start of the genocide, as there are children whose parents, both or one of them, were killed, arrested, missing under the rubble, or those whose parents’ fate remains unknown due to the ongoing war.
The Israeli occupation exhumed more than 2,000 graves by bulldozing and destroying 13 cemeteries in the Gaza Strip. The IOF stole more than 300 bodies of those buried in these cemeteries. It also violated the sanctities of dozens of bodies, mutilated and stole vital organs from them, before returning them to be buried in mass graves in the southern Gaza Strip.
The media office added that there are 11,000 patients in critical conditions, who need to travel for treatment, while 10,000 cancer patients face the risk of death.
The office noted that 700,000 people were infected with infectious diseases as a result of displacement, and the number of displaced people in the Gaza Strip reached more than two million, while there are 8,000 cases of viral hepatitis infection due to displacement, and 60,000 pregnant women are at risk due to lack of health care, and 350 patients with chronic diseases who are at risk due to the lack of medications.
The occupation forces dropped 70,000 tons of explosives on Gaza, destroying 166 government headquarters, 405 schools and universities, 512 mosques, three churches, and 200 archaeological sites.
70,000 housing units were completely destroyed by the IOF missiles, 290,000 housing units became unfit for habitation.
32 hospitals and 53 health centres became out of service, 158 health institutions were partially destroyed, and 126 ambulances were completely destroyed.
Since October 7, 2023, the IOF has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip, resulting in catastrophic humanitarian and health conditions, due to the continuous bombing and the prevention of supplies of food, water, medicine, and electricity.
The Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip constitutes a blatant violation of international humanitarian law and human rights, as it exposes the lives and property of civilians to extreme danger, which requires urgent intervention from the international community to stop the aggression and protect civilians in the Gaza Strip.
This international community must force the IOF to adhere to international laws and treaties on human rights and international humanitarian law. They must be obliged to protect the rights and lives of civilians, prohibit their targeting and preserve their safety, and punish the leaders responsible for committing war crimes in the Gaza Strip and elsewhere.
