GAZA CITY: The health ministry in the besieged Gaza Strip said on Thursday that Israeli strikes killed at least 38 people in the Palestinian territory in the past 24 hours, taking the overall war death toll to 45,399 since October 7, 2023.
The ministry also said in a statement that at least 107,940 people had been wounded in more than 14 months of relentless Israeli bombardment campaign since October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel.
“Many people are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them,” the health ministry added.
Israel has continued strikes on the Gaza Strip since a Hamas attack on October 7 last year despite a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire.
The latest victims included five journalists who were killed in an Israeli airstrike outside the Al-Awda Hospital in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp in the central part of Gaza.
One of them, Ayman al-Jadi was killed while he was waiting outside the hospital as his wife was in labour to give birth to their first child.
The second year of war in Gaza has drawn growing international condemnation, with officials and institutions labelling the attacks and blocking of aid deliveries as a deliberate attempt to destroy a population.
Last month, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its deadly war on Gaza.
Three babies froze to death in recent days at the al-Mawasi refugee camp in southern Gaza amid Israel’s continuous blockade of food, water and essential winter supplies in the war-torn territory. The latest to die was a three-week-old baby girl who froze to death overnight on Tuesday.
According to Israel’s weather service, temperatures in Gaza in recent days were as low as eight degrees Celsius (46 Fahrenheit) at night.
Ahmed al-Farra, director of the children’s ward at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, confirmed that the baby died of hypothermia. He said two other babies — one 3 days old, the other a month old — had been brought to the hospital over the past 48 hours after dying of hypothermia.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, displaced multiple times amid relentless attacks by the Israeli army, crammed into often ramshackle tents as the cold, wet winter sets in.
Aid groups have struggled to deliver food and supplies and say there are shortages of blankets, warm clothing and firewood.
According to multiple reports, Israel has been deliberately preventing food, water, medicine and other essentials from entering Gaza. It has also repeatedly attacked aid convoys and civilians gathered to collect whatever aid manages to pass through the borders.
The UN has declared a famine in parts of Gaza. An independent panel of aid experts found that nearly half of the Palestinians in the enclave are struggling with hunger. Many go days without eating. Palestinian authorities say dozens of children have starved to death.
Investigations by two foremost US government agencies in September this year concluded that Israel has been interfering with aid works in Gaza by deliberately blocking essential supplies, killing aid workers, razing agricultural structures, bombing ambulances and hospitals, sitting on supply depots and routinely turning away trucks full of food and medicine.
