Nuseirat massacre: Israel’s airstrikes kill 26 Palestinians, including children and women

Israeli airstrikes on a home in Nuseirat refugee camp have killed or wounded dozens of people, including children and women, according to medics. 

On Friday evening, the regime’s military targeted a residential building with airstrikes, in the camp in central Gaza Strip.

Medics said at least 26 people were killed, among them 6 kids and five women. At least 60 people were also wounded.

Civil defense agency spokesman Mahmoud Basal also said that the raid “damaged multiple neighboring houses.”

In a separate incident, a young girl was killed when Israeli artillery shelled tents housing displaced families near the western part of the camp.

The regime's forces also targeted a gathering of civilians in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City, killing at least four people.

Two more Palestinians were killed in a separate airstrike west of Rafah, located in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

In the northern Gaza Strip, Israeli airstrikes, gunfire and orders to evacuate in the dark of night caused heavy casualties in the area of one of the last working hospitals — Kamal Adwan Hospital-- in Jabalia.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, the director of the hospital described “a series of airstrikes on the northern and western sides of the hospital,” late Friday evening. When dawn broke, he said, bodies were “in the streets, surrounding the hospital,” and four medical staff members were among the dead.

According to medics, at least 32 people were killed, including five women and five children.

“The situation inside and around the hospital is catastrophic,” Safia said.

Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization’s chief representative for the Palestinian territories, also said there was “intense bombing close to the hospital and an attack by Israeli forces who ordered everyone to leave,” which sparked panic that added to the casualties.

He said that the hospital did not receive the kind of official evacuation order that sometimes precedes airstrikes. According to Peeperkorn, the regime's forces entered around 4 am and told people to leave.

Israel uses Gazans as human shields in northern Gaza

Meanwhile, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said in a statement that Israel's military has used Palestinians as human shields in their continued attempts to evacuate hospitals in northern Gaza.

UNICEF warns situation in besieged northern Gaza ‘catastrophic’

UNICEF has voiced concern about the “catastrophic and horrible situation” of Palestinian children in the northern part of the besieged Gaza Strip.

Citing its field teams, the Geneva-based group said that Israeli soldiers forced Palestinian detainees “to warn hospital staff that all displaced persons and companions of patients must leave the premises and head to areas controlled by Israeli forces.”

“Many were arrested upon arrival, while others were forced to flee to a checkpoint in the Civil Administration area and eventually to Gaza City,” also in the north, the monitor said.

The health ministry in Gaza said Saturday the death toll has now surpassed 44,660, in nearly 14 months of Israel's genocidal war on the besieged Palestinian territory. 

The figure given by health officials, however, does not tell the full story of Palestinian losses, excluding those missing or buried deep beneath the rubble for rescue teams to reach them. At least 11,000 people, health officials say, are now presumed dead under the rubble of their homes across the coastal enclave.

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