GAZA CITY, Palestine: Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli attacks killed at least 39 people on Saturday, warning that intensifying strikes on a Gaza City neighbourhood were placing its remaining residents in mortal danger.
The latest toll comes more than a week after Israel’s security cabinet approved plans to capture the Palestinian territory’s largest city, following 22 months of war that have created dire humanitarian conditions.
Gaza’s health ministry on Saturday reported that the death toll since the start of Israel’s offensive on Gaza has reached 61,897, and 155,660 others were wounded.
The health ministry said that 70 Palestinians who were killed, including eight bodies recovered from under the rubble or elsewhere, were brought to hospitals over the past 24 hours.
At least 26 people were killed while seeking aid, and another 175 were injured. At least 1,924 Palestinians have now been confirmed killed and 14,288 injured while seeking aid.
According to the ministry, Israel has killed at least 10,362 people and wounded 43,619 others since March 18, when it broke the previous ceasefire agreement and started a total blockade of aid and massive air strikes.
Food and water shortage
Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said conditions in Gaza City’s Zeitun neighbourhood were rapidly deteriorating, with residents having little to no access to food and water amid heavy Israeli bombardment.
He said that about 50,000 people were estimated to be in that area of Gaza City, “the majority of whom are without food or water” and lacking “the basic necessities of life”.
To Bassal, Israel was carrying out “ethnic cleansing” in Zeitun.
Israeli officials have dismissed similar accusations before, and the military insists it abides by international law.
The military is “committed to mitigating civilian harm during operational activity, in strict accordance with international law,” it said in a statement, questioning the reliability of the death tolls provided by the civil defence agency.
Expanded operations
Earlier this month, the Israeli government approved plans to seize Gaza City and neighbouring camps, some of the most densely populated parts of the Palestinian territory.
On Friday, the Israeli military said its troops were operating in Zeitun.
Later Saturday, Hamas said in a statement that Israeli forces had been carrying out a “sustained offensive in the eastern and southern neighbourhoods of Gaza City, particularly in Zeitun”.
The Palestinian group said the military was targeting the area with warplanes, artillery and drones.
COGAT — the Israeli defence ministry body responsible for civil affairs in the Palestinian territories — said that, starting from Sunday, the military would supply more tents and shelter equipment ahead of the offensive.
“As part of the preparations to move the population from combat zones to the southern Gaza Strip for their protection, the supply of tents and shelter equipment to Gaza will resume,” it said in a statement.
The Israeli plan to expand the war has sparked an international outcry as well as domestic opposition.
UN-backed experts have warned of widespread famine unfolding in the territory, where Israel has drastically curtailed the amount of humanitarian aid it allows in.
