In yet another chapter of the ongoing genocide against civilians in the Gaza Strip, 22 Palestinians were killed on Thursday, including five who were waiting for humanitarian aid, as Israeli occupation forces continued relentless airstrikes and artillery attacks on densely populated areas.
The Israeli occupation carried out a series of targeted airstrikes and artillery bombardments on homes and displacement camps across different parts of the besieged territory.
In central Gaza, four people, including two young girls, were killed when a residential apartment in Al-Salhi Tower, west of Al-Nuseirat refugee camp, was bombed. Another four civilians were killed and several others injured in a strike targeting the Al-Hadidi family home in Al-Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City.
In the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in northern Gaza, a strike on the Zaqout family home near Al-Noor Al-Mohammedi Mosque killed three civilians and wounded others.
Further south in Khan Younis, an Israeli airstrike killed a man, his wife, and their children after targeting their home in the western camp area. In another attack, a young girl was killed and others wounded when a tent sheltering displaced families was hit. In the same area, warplanes targeted another displacement tent, killing two women.
In Deir al-Balah, Israeli occupation forces struck a group of civilians waiting for humanitarian aid east of the city, killing five and injuring others. This attack is part of a broader, systematic policy employed by the Israeli occupation, targeting aid seekers and weaponizing hunger as a means of humiliation and extermination.
Since the beginning of the assault on October 7, 2023, the death toll in Gaza has climbed to 61,158, including more than 1,600 civilians killed while waiting for aid. The number of injured has risen to 151,442, with over 11,800 wounded while attempting to access food or escape starvation.
Additionally, at least 193 people, including 96 children, have died from severe hunger and malnutritin, a horrifying precedent echoing the darkest pages of modern history.
What is unfolding in Gaza can only be described as a deliberate, systematic genocide, carried out by a military machine that does not distinguish between child and elder, home and tent, patient and aid-seeker. The repeated targeting of civilians, strikes on shelters, and the denial of food and medicine are all glaring evidence of intent to destroy part of the Palestinian population.
With shameful global complicity and the continued failure to hold perpetrators accountable, Gaza’s tragedy is set to worsen, unless the world acts to stop this ruthless war machine and puts an end to the use of hunger and fire as tools to crush an unarmed population.
