JerusalemA baby girl and her parents were killed by an Israeli bombing in Gaza on Saturday, according to witnesses and officials at Nasser Hospital. Meanwhile, hostage families in Israel demanded a statewide day of stoppage to voice their mounting dissatisfaction over the 22-month conflict.
Palestinians prayed over the baby’s blue-wrapped body as it was laid on top of her parents’. In the congested Muwasi region, Motasem al-Batta, his wife, and the girl were slaughtered in their tent.
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What has she done in the past two and a half months? As temperatures in the devastated area rose over 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius), neighbor Fathi Shubeir inquired, perspiring. They are citizens in a zone that has been declared secure.
According to Israel’s military, it is destroying Hamas’ military capabilities while taking care to protect people. It stated that without further information, it was unable to comment on the strike.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that Israel intends to expand its upcoming military attack in Muwasi, one of the densely populated regions of Gaza. Israel may be using the threat to compel Hamas into releasing more hostages taken in the October 7, 2023, attack that started the war, but the deployment of forces is anticipated to take weeks.
Hostage families worry that the upcoming offensive puts the 50 captives who are still in Gaza—of whom only 20 are believed to be alive—in much greater danger. The recent revelation of footage depicting malnourished detainees speaking under pressure and begging for food and assistance appalled them and other Israelis.
Israelis were invited into the streets on Sunday by a group that represents the families. According to a statement, hundreds of citizen-led projects nationwide would stop their regular activities to support the most moral and right cause: the fight to free all 50 hostages.
Levels of malnutrition and starvation in Gaza are at their highest since the start of the conflict, the UN warns. As illnesses grow, Palestinians are drinking tainted water, and some Israeli officials are still publicly discussing the large-scale exodus from Gaza.
The territory’s Health Ministry reported on Saturday that 11 more deaths in Gaza were caused by malnutrition in the last 24 hours, one of whom was a kid. This raises the number of wartime deaths from hunger to 251.
With Israeli restrictions and pressure from hungry Palestinian crowds, the U.N. and its partners say it is still very difficult to deliver supplies into the territory of more than 2 million people and then on to distribution stations.
Between May 27 and Wednesday, at least 1,760 individuals were killed while trying to get relief, according to the U.N. human rights office. It claims that 766 people were killed along supply convoy routes and 994 people were killed near non-UN-militarized areas. This is a reference to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has been the main distributor of aid in Gaza since May and is supported by both the United States and Israel.
In 2023, an attack led by Hamas killed almost 1,200 people in Israel. The Health Ministry reports that Israel’s retaliatory attack has killed 61,897 individuals in Gaza, with about half of those dead being women and children. The ministry does not disclose how many of the deaths were militants or civilians.
The ministry employs medical experts and is a part of the Hamas-run government. It is regarded as the most trustworthy source of casualties by the U.N. and independent experts. Israel denies its numbers but hasn’t offered any of its own.
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