Israeli air attacks against the Gaza Strip killed at least 29 people, said the Civil Defense Agency in Gaza, while the United Nations demanded that Israel will raise its blockade from the Palestinian territory and allowed humanitarian aid to enter.
At least eight people were killed in an Israeli attack which struck the family home of Abu Sahlul in the Khan Younis refugee camp in southern Gaza, according to civil defense official Mohammed El-Mougher.
Four others were killed in an air strike in the Tuffah district of Gaza City, east of Shaaf, and at least 17 others were killed in other attacks across the enclave on Thursday, including a strike on a tent housing displaced civilians near Deir El-Balah.
Witnesses informed the AFP news agency of a trace of devastation in Khan Younis. “We came here and found all these houses destroyed, and the children, women and young people all bombed in pieces,” said Ahmed Abu Zarqa. “Enough, we are tired. We no longer know what to do with our life. We prefer to die than to live this kind of life. ”
“Help should never be a negotiation chip”
The bombing comes in the midst of disastrous warnings in the humanitarian situation in the besieged territory, which has been under a total Israeli blockade for two months.
Volker Turk, head of human rights of the United Nations, said that the conditions imposed by Israel on the Palestinians in Gaza are “increasingly incompatible with their continuous existence as a group”. He warned that famine as a method of war could constitute a war crime.
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza has reached a catastrophic level, with Palestinians vacillating on the verge of mass famine, according to Tareq Abu Azzoum of Tel Aviv Tribune.
“Parents have literally started jumping meals and children are now eating spoiled food. Canned food has become luxury, “he said. The bakeries supported by aid have closed their doors due to serious shortages, while the global food program would have been out of stock, leaving the popular soups outdated and barely operational.
“Residents call for safe and supported humanitarian corridors, but say that significant aid can only enter when Israel allows,” he added. With the blockade now in its second month, many in Gaza believe that they are not only undergoing a humanitarian emergency, but “an engineering misery” which sparked famine on a devastating scale.
Tom Fletcher, the UN humanitarian chief, echoes these concerns on Thursday. “Help, and the civil lives he saves, should never be a bargaining currency,” he said.
“Blocking aid kills. He inflicts cruel collective sanctions. ” He criticized an Israeli proposal for private distribution of Aid to Gaza, insufficient appellant and not aligned with basic humanitarian principles.
“To the Israeli authorities, and to those who can still reason with them, we install: lift this brutal blockade. Let the humanitarian workers save lives,” he said.
The United Nations agencies, including UNRWA, have said that more than 3,000 aid trucks are stuck on the Gaza border, unable to deliver essential supplies. A million children are said to be in danger. “The seat must be lifted,” said UNRWA in an article on X.
Qatar slaps Israel in ICJ
The obligations of Israel to provide humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank are also the subject of a one -week hearing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), following a request for advisory opinion from the United Nations General Assembly last year.
On the fourth day of the hearings Thursday, the ambassador of Qatar to the Netherlands, Mutlaq al-Qahtani, told court that Israel had continued his “genocidal war against the Palestinian people” and increased the efforts of settlement in occupied West Bank.
The Palestinians of Gaza continue to face “famine type conditions” while Israel continues to block “any delivery of vital aid,” said Mutlaq al-Qahtani
Israel has endangered the existence of the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA, which is “the backbone” of humanitarian aid and development in the occupied territory, added the Qatari diplomat.