GAZA, (The Palestine Information Centre)As the war entered its eighth day, the Israeli occupation army continued on Saturday to tighten its chokehold on the Gaza Strip, amid ongoing deadly and destructive attacks on homes, streets, and infrastructures and threats to bomb hospitals.
According to the latest update by the health ministry on Friday evening, the number of Palestinian civilians killed in Israeli attacks has climbed to 1,900 martyrs, including 614 children and 370 women.
Its statement said that the number of wounded civilians in Gaza has risen to 7,696, including 2,000 children and 1,400 women.
Israel’s brutal attacks on Gaza have also destroyed thousands of housing units and civilian facilities and forced nearly half a million to flee their homes since the war started on October 7.
As part of ongoing Israeli war crimes, military aircraft dropped on Friday thousands of leaflets on the northern Gaza Strip ordering residents in that part of the Palestinian territory to evacuate to its southern half as a prelude to wiping out the entire area with bombs.
According to the UN, about 1.1. million people live in northern Gaza, the most densely populated part of the coastal territory.
Meanwhile, at least 70 Palestinian people were killed and around 200 others were injured on Friday in a new Israeli massacre committed against Palestinian families who were forced to flee their homes in northern Gaza.
Eyewitnesses and journalists said that Israeli warplanes bombed three convoys of Palestinian families as they were traveling on roads and seeking shelter in southern Gaza.
More civilians were also massacred in massive Israeli aerial and artillery bombardment on homes in different areas of Gaza last night and on Saturday morning.
In a related development, the administration of Al Awda Hospital in Jabalia said that it had received an Israeli military warning ordering it to evacuate the building as a prelude to bombing it.
The administration added that the hospital provides maternity services every half an hour, and its sections and rooms are crammed with wounded citizens.
“We appeal to our humanitarian partners around the world to pressure the Israeli occupation to avoid attacking the health system, which is threatened with collapse to the ongoing aggression,” the administration said.
For its part, the Hamas Movement said that the Israeli evacuation threats against Gaza hospitals are a new Israeli war crime, applauding the courage of medical crews who refuse to leave hospitals.
“The fascist occupation state insists on committing more war and genocidal crimes against our people in the Gaza Strip through carrying out direct attacks on hospitals and health centers,” Hamas said in a statement on Saturday.
Hamas added that the Israeli occupation army ordered the medical staff of Al Awda Hospital in northern Gaza to evacuate the building as a prelude to bombing it, stressing that such a threat reflects “the Israeli army’s premeditated criminal intents towards the citizens in Gaza.”
Hamas underlined that Israel’s plan to deprive the Gaza population of their right to receive basic and emergency medical and health services amounts to a war crime under the international humanitarian law.
The Movement emphasized the need for urgent action by the UN and the concerned international organizations to protect the hospitals, and medical and humanitarian personnel and institutions in Gaza against Israeli attacks and crimes.
