GAZA CITY: Israeli military has killed at least 39,699 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in the besieged Gaza Strip since October 7 as Israeli strikes killed 22 more people in the past 24 hours, the Health Ministry in Gaza reported on Thursday.
The health ministry reported that more than 91,722 people have been wounded in the ongoing Israeli bombardment campaign since October last year.
Palestine has sought an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich for his call to starve two million people in Gaza to death.
“This is an explicit admission of adopting and bragging about the policy of genocide,” the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Smotrich on Monday said that letting two million people in Gaza die from hunger might be “justified and moral.”
Israeli military actions have drawn widespread international condemnation. Despite a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire, Israel has continued its offensive, which has resulted in widespread destruction across Gaza.
The blockade on basic items, including food, medicine and clean water, has further worsened the humanitarian crisis in the region.
The World Central Kitchen (WCK), a US-based aid group, has said that one of its staff members was killed in Gaza. WCK, in a statement, said Nadi Sallout, a Palestinian, was killed near the central city of Deir al-Balah, without providing details about the circumstances of his death.
“He was an integral member of our warehouse team from the early days of our response in Rafah and a humanitarian at his very core,” WCK said.
Meanwhile, The Open-Ended Extraordinary Meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Member States of the OIC on Wednesday also strongly condemned the continued war crimes, aggression and genocide committed by Israel, the illegal occupying power, in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including the City of Al-Quds Ash-Sharif and demanded an immediate end to the Israeli aggression and the policy of torture, starvation and collective punishment against the Palestinian people.
