The bodies of 79 people killed in Israeli airstrikes over the past 24 hours have been brought to hospitals, Gaza’s Health Ministry said Saturday – a figure that excludes casualties in the war-ravaged north, where hospitals are now inaccessible.
Among the dead are nine of a single doctor’s 10 children, according to the Health Ministry and medical colleagues.
Dr. Alaa Najjar, a pediatrician at Nasser Hospital, was on duty during the strike and rushed home to find her house engulfed in flames, said Dr. Ahmad al-Farra, head of the hospital’s pediatric department.
Najjar’s husband was severely wounded, and their only surviving child – an 11-year-old son – was in critical condition following Friday’s strike in the southern city of Khan Younis, al-Farra said.
The dead children ranged in age from 7 months to 12 years. Khalil al-Dokran, a spokesperson for Gaza’s Health Ministry, told The Associated Press (AP) that two of the children remained under the rubble.
There was no immediate comment from Israel’s military on the strike. Earlier Saturday, it said the Israeli air force had struck more than 100 targets across Gaza in the past day.
The Health Ministry said the new deaths brought the war’s toll to 53,901 since Oct. 7, 2023.
It said 3,747 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel resumed its offensive on March 18 in an effort to pressure Hamas into accepting revised cease-fire terms.
Israel's pressure on Hamas has included a blockade of Gaza and its more than 2 million residents since early March.
This week, a limited number of aid trucks entered the territory for the first time since the blockade began.
But the deliveries fell far short of the roughly 600 trucks per day that had entered during the cease-fire.
Warnings of famine from food security experts and images of desperate Palestinians jostling for food at a shrinking number of charity kitchens have led Israel’s allies to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to allow more aid in.
Netanyahu’s government has proposed a new U.S.-backed aid delivery and distribution system, but the United Nations and its partners have rejected it, saying it would let Israel use food as a weapon and violate humanitarian principles.
Israel may now be shifting its stance to allow aid groups to continue overseeing non-food assistance, according to a letter obtained by the AP.
Israel has accused Hamas of diverting aid, but the U.N. and humanitarian organizations deny any significant diversion.
The Oct. 7 incursion on southern Israel killed about 1,200 people and Hamas abducted 251 others.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive, which has devastated much of Gaza, has killed mostly women and children, according to the Health Ministry.
Israel has said it will continue its operations until Hamas releases all of the 58 remaining Israeli hostages and disarms.
Hamas has said it will only return the remaining hostages in exchange for the release of more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting cease-fire and an Israeli withdrawal from the territory.
Netanyahu has rejected those terms and vowed to maintain control over Gaza and support what he calls the voluntary emigration of much of its Palestinian population.
