The Israeli occupation army has killed 42 Palestinians, including children, and injured others on Wednesday in airstrikes targeting various areas of the Gaza Strip, according to the Ministry of Health in the territory.
This comes as part of the ongoing genocide against civilians in Gaza, perpetrated by the occupation with American support for the past 20 months.
The brutal Israeli assault struck homes in the north, centre, and south of the Strip, while civil defence and medical teams continue searching for those missing beneath the rubble.
In northern Gaza, 12 Palestinians were killed and others, including children, were injured after two homes in Jabalia were bombed, according to medical sources.
Eyewitnesses reported that rescue teams are still searching for missing persons under the debris.
In Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, five Palestinians — including an infant — were killed and ten others injured in a strike targeting a residential home.
In Khan Younis, in the south of the Strip, 24 Palestinians were killed and others wounded, with more missing, after Israeli forces targeted the al-Masri family home near the desalination plant east of the city, along with other homes.
These attacks form part of the ongoing genocide committed by the occupation forces against the residents of the Gaza Strip — a clear violation of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which prohibits any act intended to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group — a definition that, under international legal standards, applies to the Palestinian people.
The deliberate targeting of civilian homes and the deaths of infants, children, and women highlight the systematic and intentional nature of these crimes, which also constitute flagrant breaches of the Four Geneva Conventions, particularly the Fourth Convention on the protection of civilians during wartime.
In a concerning development, Israel’s political-security cabinet (“the Cabinet”) approved a military plan in early May named “Gideon’s Chariots”, aimed at expanding military operations and preparing for a wide-scale occupation of Gaza. This includes the forced displacement of northern residents to the south — an act classified as a crime of mass forced transfer, punishable under international law.
Since 7 October 2023, over 175,000 civilians in Gaza have been killed or wounded — the vast majority of them children and women — in addition to more than 11,000 missing under the rubble, underscoring the scale of the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe, amid international silence and complicity from states backing the occupation, particularly the United States.
What is happening in Gaza necessitates urgent action — the launch of an independent international investigation into these violations and the activation of international accountability mechanisms to hold Israeli leaders responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
