Twelve Palestinians, including six children, were killed in Israeli airstrikes across various parts of the Gaza Strip since dawn on Wednesday, as Israel continues its large-scale assault systematically targeting civilians and vital infrastructure.
According to medical sources and eyewitnesses, the strikes directly hit homes and civilian gatherings, resulting in the deaths of twelve people, among them six children, and leaving others injured.
In the northern governorate, Israeli forces targeted a home belonging to the Al-Najjar family in Jabalia al-Balad, killing eight people, including all six children. In central Gaza, an airstrike on an apartment in Al-Bureij refugee camp claimed the lives of a father and his son. In the south, two Palestinians, including a woman, were killed in an attack on a civilian gathering in Khan Younis.
Since Israel resumed its genocidal campaign on Gaza on 18 March, 792 Palestinians have been killed and 1,663 others injured—most of them women and children—according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. The United Nations has confirmed that approximately 124,000 Palestinians have been newly displaced following intensified attacks and a surge in forced evacuation orders.
The deliberate targeting of civilians—particularly vulnerable groups such as women and children—constitutes acts of genocide under Article II of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which defines genocide as acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. This includes killing members of the group and inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.
Furthermore, the widespread forced displacement of the population, compounded by the ongoing blockade and systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure, underscores the genocidal nature of this offensive. These practices represent grave violations of international humanitarian law, including the four Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
The ongoing massacres in Gaza—combined with a blockade that has lasted more than seventeen years—amount to fully-fledged crimes of genocide and systematic human rights violations. They demand immediate international intervention to halt the assault and ensure accountability for those responsible before international justice mechanisms, to prevent the recurrence of atrocities that have shocked the conscience of humanity.
