Gaza rescuers say Israeli strikes kill at least 24 | Breaking News & Latest Ireland Updates

Gaza rescuers say Israeli strikes kill at least 24 — Gaza's civil defence agency said today that Israeli bombardment killed at least 24 people since midnight in the war-ravaged territory, which has been ...

Gaza's civil defence agency said today that Israeli bombardment killed at least 24 people since midnight in the war-ravaged territory, which has been under an Israeli aid blockade for nearly two months.

Israel resumed its military campaign in Gaza on 18 March, after a two-month truce collapsed over disagreements between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose 2023 attack triggered the conflict.

Civil defence official Mohammed al-Mughayyir said the toll included eight people killed in an Israeli air strike on the Abu Sahlul family home in Khan Yunis refugee camp in the territory's south.

Four people were killed in an air strike east of Shaaf in Gaza City's Al-Tuffah neighbourhood, he told AFP.

At least 12 others were killed in seven separate attacks across the Palestinian territory, including one that hit a tent sheltering displaced people near the central city of Deir el-Balah, according to the agency.

"We came here and found all these houses destroyed, and children, women and young people all bombed to pieces," said Ahmed Abu Zarqa following a deadly strike in Khan Yunis.

"This is no way to live. Enough, we're tired, enough!

"We don't know what to do with our lives anymore. We'd rather die than live this kind of life."

AFP images showed residents digging through rubble in search of bodies, which were carried away on stretchers under blankets.

At Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, rescuers rushed a screaming, wounded child out of an ambulance.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said that at least 2,326 people have been killed since Israel resumed strikes, bringing the overall death toll since the war broke out to 52,418.

The Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Militants also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel says its renewed military campaign aims to force Hamas to free the remaining captives.

Days before resuming its military campaign, Israel blocked all aid entering Gaza, with UN rights chief Volker Turk saying the territory was witnessing a "humanitarian catastrophe".

"Israel appears to be inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life increasingly incompatible with their continued existence as a group in Gaza," he said this week.

Looting of food stores

Meanwhile, increased looting of food stores and community kitchens in Gaza shows growing desperation as hunger spreads two months after Israel cut off supplies to the Palestinian territory, aid officials say.

Palestinian residents and aid officials said at least five incidents of looting took place across the enclave, including at community kitchens, merchants' stores, and the UN Palestinian refugee agency's (UNRWA) main complex in Gaza.

The looting "is a grave signal of how serious things have become in the Gaza Strip - the spread of hunger, the loss of hope and desperation among residents as well as the absence of the authority of the law," said Amjad al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network (PNGO) in Gaza.

Thousands of displaced people broke into the UNRWA complex in Gaza City, stealing medicines from its pharmacy and damaging vehicles, said Louise Wateridge, a senior official for the agency based in Jordan.

"The looting, while devastating, is not surprising in the face of total systemic collapse. We are witnessing the consequences of a society brought to its knees by prolonged siege and violence," she said in a statement shared with Reuters.

Hamas deployed thousands of police and security forces across Gaza after a ceasefire took effect in January, but its armed presence shrunk sharply since Israel resumed large-scale attacks in March.

Ismail al-Thawabta, director of the Gaza Hamas-run government media office, described the looting incidents as "isolated individual practices that do not reflect the values and ethics of our Palestinian people".

He said that despite being targeted, Gaza authorities were "following up on these incidents and addressing them in a way that ensures the preservation of order and human dignity".

Child malnutrition

Mr al-Thawabta said Israel, which since 2 March has blocked the entry of medical, fuel, and food supplies into Gaza, was to blame.

Israel says its move was aimed at pressuring Hamas to free hostages as the ceasefire agreement stalled.

Israel has previously denied that Gaza was facing a hunger crisis. It has not made clear when and how aid will be resumed.

Israel's military accuses Hamas of diverting aid, which Hamas denies.

The United Nations warned earlier this week that acute malnutrition among Gaza's children was worsening.

Community kitchens that have provided lifelines for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are at risk of closure due to lack of supplies, and face an additional threat from looting.

"This is going to undermine the ability of the community kitchens to provide meals to a great number of families, and an indication that things have reached an unprecedentedly difficult level," PNGO's Mr Shawa told Reuters.

Accreditation:AFP/Reuters