The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) launched a series of intense air raids on Tuesday evening and into the early hours of Wednesday across various areas of the Gaza Strip, killing 68 Palestinians, including 25 children, and wounding dozens more. The strikes targeted residential homes, shelter centres, a hospital, and a civilian vehicle.
The bombardment extended across the entire Strip. In Al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis, Israeli warplanes struck tents sheltering displaced families, killing 11 Palestinians, among them three children. In the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, eight others, including four children, were killed when a house belonging to the Abu Dalal family was hit.
In Deir Al-Balah and Al-Bureij, schools and displacement centres came under fire, adding 15 new victims to the mounting toll. Gaza City, too, was not spared; the neighbourhoods of Al-Zeitoun, Tel Al-Hawa, and Al-Shati were bombarded, leaving behind a trail of civilian casualties including men, women, and children alike.
Even hospitals were not safe. The vicinities of Al-Shifa Medical Complex and the Baptist (Al-Ahli) Hospital were struck by drone-fired missiles, posing a direct threat to the lives of patients and medical staff, a blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions, which explicitly prohibit attacks on medical facilities.
This brutal onslaught constitutes a fully-fledged war crime, as the bombardment deliberately targeted densely populated civilian areas without distinction between combatant and non-combatant, in a flagrant breach of the principles of distinction and proportionality enshrined in international humanitarian law.
The targeting of displaced persons inside schools, camps, and shelter centres also represents a clear violation of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits “violence to life and person” of civilians and forbids “cruel or inhuman treatment” against protected populations.
This escalation comes amid the continuing absence of any meaningful accountability for previous crimes committed by the occupation since the war began in October 2023, in a war that has so far claimed more than 68,000 lives and left over 170,000 wounded, the vast majority of them children and women.
The persistent political and military backing the occupation receives from certain Western powers, foremost among them the United States, has effectively provided it with broad political cover to evade international punishment, thereby emboldening it to repeat its violations without fear of consequence. This leaves the international community facing a grave moral test in the face of the blood of civilians being shed on the soil of the Gaza Strip.
