In yet another horrific war crime targeting civilians in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation army committed a massacre on Wednesday morning that left 14 Palestinians dead—including women and children—after an airstrike targeted a tent sheltering displaced families inside Al-Hannawi School in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.
According to medical sources at Nasser Hospital, the total number of victims who arrived at the hospital today reached 18, of whom 14 were killed by the direct bombing of the displaced persons’ tents.
Eyewitnesses reported that an Israeli drone directly targeted a tent within the school compound, which was sheltering hundreds of families who had fled ongoing fighting in other areas of Gaza, desperately seeking safety that they did not find.
This massacre follows a recurring pattern of grave violations by Israeli forces since October 7, 2023, marked by direct targeting of civilians, systematic destruction of infrastructure, and the forced displacement of a majority of the population—actions that collectively amount to genocide under international humanitarian law.
These policies have become systematic and ongoing, including mass killings, deliberate starvation, use of siege as a weapon, and the destruction of medical, educational, and shelter facilities—undermining the basic fabric of civilian life. It is especially notable that the occupation continues to target locations densely populated by civilians and displaced persons who had previously been told to relocate to those areas as “safe zones.”
Since the start of the genocide, the death toll in Gaza has surpassed 179,000 dead and injured—most of them women and children. More than 11,000 remain missing, either buried under rubble or held in unknown detention sites. Simultaneously, the Strip is experiencing a catastrophic famine that has already claimed the lives of many civilians, especially children, due to severe shortages of food, medicine, and clean water.
It is estimated that nearly 1.5 million Palestinians—out of a population of around 2.4 million—have been rendered homeless as a result of widespread destruction. With Gaza under a crushing blockade for over 18 years, its residents are now trapped in a devastated geographical area, deprived of the basic means of survival.
The ongoing atrocities in Gaza cannot be viewed in isolation from the long-standing history of human rights violations endured by the Palestinian people under occupation. These acts blatantly violate international law, the UN Charter, and the Geneva Conventions. The continued failure of the international community to hold the perpetrators accountable signals a form of complicity that perpetuates the policy of impunity.
