THE United Nations says Palestinian women and children were the only fatalities in at least three dozen Israeli air strikes on Gaza since mid-March, as it warned that Israel’s military offensive threatens Palestinians’ “continued existence as a group”.
Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said on Friday that the office had documented 224 Israeli strikes on residential buildings and tents for displaced people in the Gaza Strip between March 18 and April 9.
“In some 36 strikes about which the UN Human Rights Office corroborated information, the fatalities recorded so far were only women and children,” she said.
The findings come as Israel’s attacks on Gaza have killed more than 1,500 Palestinians since the Israeli military broke a ceasefire in March, according to figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Israel also has imposed a total blockade on the coastal Palestinian enclave, leading the UN and rights groups to warn that food, water, medicine and other critical supplies are quickly running out.
“More than an entire month has passed without a drop of aid into Gaza. No food. No fuel. No medicine. No commercial supplies,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters in New York earlier this week.
“As aid has dried up, the floodgates of horror have reopened. Gaza is a killing field – and civilians are in an endless death loop.”
At least 15 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since dawn on Friday.
That includes 10 members of a single family, including seven children, who were killed in the bombing of a home in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
Meanwhile, many people have been trapped under the rubble across the territory as a result of Israeli attacks, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reported from central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah.
