GAZA: At least 9,488 Palestinians including 3,900 children have lost their lives in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza said on Saturday.
“The victims include 3,900 children and 2,509 women, while 24,000 other people were injured,” the ministry spokesman, Ashraf al-Qudra, told a news conference in Gaza City.
“70% of the victims of aggression are children, women and elderly people,” the spokesman added.
He also said that “the ministry have received reports about 2,200 people missing under the rubble, including 1,250 children, since the start of the aggression on Gaza.”
“150 health personnel were killed and 27 ambulances were destroyed and put out of service as a result of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip,” Qudra added.
He also accused Israel of “deliberately targeting more than 105 health institutions, which left 16 hospitals and 32 primary care centers out of service due to Israeli targeting and fuel exhaustion.”
“The occupation deliberately prevents the evacuation of the wounded from hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip and Gaza City to southern Gaza, all the way to the Rafah land crossing,” Qudra also said.
Israeli forces also struck the Al-Fakhoora school located inside the Jabalia refugee camp. The school is run by the UN agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA).
Although the exact number of casualties is not yet known, many have been brought to the hospital and there are fears the number could be in the dozens, Al Jazeera reported.
The school was hosting thousands of people who had fled previous airstrikes from different parts of the north of Gaza.
The refugee camp in Gaza has been hit three times in recent days.
An Israeli drone fired a missile at the Gaza house of Hamas’ leader Ismail Haniyeh who is currently outside the enclave, Hamas’s Al-Aqsa Radio reported on Saturday.
It was unclear whether any of his family members were at the house when it was struck.
Haniyeh, Hamas’ political chief, has been outside the Gaza Strip since 2019, residing between Turkey and Qatar.
Another massive bombardment occurred in a densely populated central neighbourhood, causing further destruction. Despite the ongoing search for survivors, people continue to search for survivors under the rubble.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said at least 12 people were killed Saturday when Israel struck a United Nations school where thousands of displaced Palestinians were sheltering.
The ministry reported in a statement “12 martyrs and upwards of 54 wounded so far as a result of targeting Al-Fakhura school, which is sheltering thousands of displaced people in Jabalia (refugee) camp in the northern Gaza Strip”.
An earlier statement by the interior ministry said it was an “occupation (Israeli) strike” that hit the school.
There was no immediate comment from Israel, and AFP was unable to independently confirm the toll.
There was also no immediate comment from the UN aid agency supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
On Thursday, UNRWA said that four of its schools in the Gaza Strip housing people displaced by the war had been damaged by bombings.
US Special Envoy David Satterfield said on Saturday that US officials had not been told that Hamas is blocking or diverting humanitarian aid flowing into the Gaza Strip amid shortages of food, medicine and fuel.
Speaking to reporters in the Jordanian capital Amman, he said that those distributing aid in Gaza had not reported aid being diverted since trucks resumed crossing the Egypt-controlled Rafah gate on October 21 after diplomatic wrangling to resume the flow.
Those in charge of the aid “do not report to us in this 10 day, 12 day period of assistance delivery, interdiction of or seizure of goods by Hamas,” he said.
Between 800,000 to a million people have moved to the south of the Gaza Strip, while 350,000-400,000 remain in the north of the enclave, Satterfield said.
Amid the ongoing war between Israel and Gaza, protests have erupted in countries across the world featuring crowds of thousands of people calling for a ceasefire.
Despite witnessing one of the biggest protests for ceasefire by its people, the US has promised military aid to Israel for the ongoing war that has taken the lives of more than 9,000 civilians including nearly 4,000 children
