At least 11 Palestinians, including a pregnant woman and a child, were killed Tuesday in a wave of fresh Israeli air and artillery strikes across the Gaza Strip, deepening the suffering in a territory already gripped by famine and disease.
Medical officials said one Palestinian was killed and several others wounded when Israeli fire struck the crowded Shati refugee camp in Gaza City.
Since dawn, Israeli forces have shelled the camp while warplanes pounded the nearby Al-Sabra neighborhood.
In central Gaza, the toll was even heavier.
A Palestinian mother and her six sons were killed when Israeli fire leveled their home in Deir al-Balah.
Another house in the Nuseirat refugee camp was struck, injuring civilians, while artillery fire ripped through a family home in Bureij, with no immediate word on casualties.
South of the enclave, tragedy repeated itself. In Khan Younis, Israeli shelling killed a man, his pregnant wife and their child as they sheltered in a tent in Al-Mawasi, an area crammed with displaced families.
The strikes came as Gaza’s Health Ministry reported a staggering rise in deaths from malnutrition and famine, now claiming 453 lives since the war began nearly a year ago.
The victims include 150 children. The ministry said at least 175 people – 35 of them children – have died since August, when the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification formally declared famine in Gaza City and warned the crisis would spread across the enclave by the end of September.
Israel has kept Gaza’s borders sealed since March, choking off aid shipments despite relief trucks piling up at crossing points.
While limited supplies have occasionally been allowed through, humanitarian groups say they fall far short of basic needs.
Much of the aid that does trickle in is looted by gangs the Gaza administration accuses Israel of shielding.
Rights groups also accuse Israel of luring desperate civilians into aid distribution zones, only to target them with gunfire.
Since October 2023, more than 66,000 Palestinians – most of them women and children – have been killed in Israel’s campaign, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
With neighborhoods flattened, hospitals collapsing, and hunger tightening its grip, the enclave has been left teetering between bombardment and famine, nearly uninhabitable for its 2.3 million people.
