Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 40 people across Gaza during the past 24 hours, civil defence officials in the devastated Palestinian territory said, as Israel’s government prepared to order an expansion of its military offensive.
Nine people were killed when a strike hit a home in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza; another six people died in a separate strike targeting a family home in the northern city of Beit Lahiya; six more died in a strike on a community kitchen in Gaza City, and an overnight attack on the Khan Younis refugee camp killed at least 11 people including three babies up to a year old, the officials said.
Asked to comment on the strikes, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson said the military “takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm”.
Israel resumed its bombing campaign in Gaza on 18 March, ending a fragile ceasefire. Since then, at least 2,326 people have been killed, bringing the death toll since the war broke out to 52,418, according to the health ministry in Gaza.
Israel has accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields, a charge denied by the radical Islamist organisation. It also accuses Hamas of stealing and selling aid to fund its military and other operations.
The war was triggered by a surprise attack launched by Hamas into Israel on 7 October 2023. Militants killed more than 1,200 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 34 whom the Israeli military says are dead.
Aid officials have warned of a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, with famine again looming. On Friday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned that the humanitarian response in Gaza was on the “verge of total collapse”.
“This situation must not – and cannot – be allowed to escalate further,” Pascal Hundt, the ICRC’s deputy director of operations, said in a statement.
There has been no progress in faltering negotiations for a new ceasefire-for-hostages deal in recent weeks, and reports in Israeli media suggest Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, will soon approve a new broader offensive as well as a new plan drawn up by Israeli officials for renewed distribution of aid in Gaza involving private contractors and a small number of “hubs” to be constructed in the south of the territory.
Humanitarian officials in Gaza told the Guardian last week that the proposed Israeli aid plan was impracticable and unethical.
“The current scheme just won’t work unless there are a lot more distribution hubs and even then we cannot be a party to something that may drive massive and possibly permanent displacement within Gaza,” one senior humanitarian official said.
The US president, Donald Trump, is thought to be likely to press Israel for some concessions on aid entering Gaza before he visits Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar this month. A week ago, he told Netanyahu to be “good to Gaza”….
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