The Ministry of Health in Gaza said that the Israeli aggression had killed 23,843 and injured 60,317 Palestinians and that there were victims under the rubble and on the roads that rescue crews could not reach in different parts of the strip.
The ministry said on Saturday that Israel had committed 12 massacres in the Gaza Strip, killing 135 people in the past 24 hours. It said that Israel’s genocide had left one out of every 20 citizens in the Gaza Strip either dead, injured, or missing.
The Ministry of Health also said that Israel was still targeting health workers by bombing and arresting them, which had caused dozens of deaths. The ministry held a press conference in front of Al-Shifa Medical Complex in the northern Gaza Strip and said that the infrastructure, health, and service facilities in Rafah were fragile and could not meet the needs of 1.3 million people and displaced persons.
It also said that there were only 6 ambulances left in the Strip and that they were struggling to operate some basic services, such as intensive care units and child nurseries.
The government media office in Gaza said that the northern Gaza Strip needed 1,300 food trucks daily to avoid hunger and that Israel had killed 14 Palestinians who tried to get food.
The office said in a statement: “We sound the alarm once again about the Israeli army’s deliberate and intentional policy of causing a real famine in the Gaza and North Gaza governorates, and what confirms this is its prevention of the entry of aid, supplies, and food and ration materials, as well as its shooting at trucks trying to reach the two governorates, killing more than 14 Palestinians who were searching for a morsel of food to eat, as well as targeting all drinking water lines and wells, completely disrupting all aspects of life.”
It also warned that the continued policy of starvation and thirst threatened the lives of 800,000 people in the northern Gaza Strip, and explained that the North Gaza Governorate currently needed 600 trucks of aid and food daily, and the Gaza Governorate also needed 700 trucks daily.
Egyptian sources said in press statements on Saturday that Cairo had started discussions with the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on Friday, about the movement’s demand to increase aid to the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing, and to increase the number of injured people leaving the Gaza Strip to receive treatment in Egypt or travel abroad.
The head of the Egyptian Information Service, Diaa Rashwan, said that the Rafah crossing was fully open from the Egyptian side for the crossing of people and injured people and the entry of aid. He said that within 95 days, 7,000 tons of medicines and medical supplies, 4,500 tons of fuel, 50,000 tons of food supplies, 20,000 tons of water, 12,000 tons of tents and subsistence materials, and 88 ambulances had entered.
Rashwan’s statement came in response to Israeli allegations in the International Court of Justice – where it faces charges of genocide in Gaza – that Egypt was the one preventing aid from entering the Strip. He said that 1,210 injured people and 1,085 of their companions had been received, 23,000 Palestinians with dual citizenship had crossed, and 2,623 Egyptians stranded in the Gaza Strip had crossed since the start of the aggression on Gaza.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said that Israel had arrested at least 15 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank in the past hours. The total number of arrests in the occupied West Bank since October 7 had risen to 5,835 detainees.
The Palestinian news agency Wafa also reported that the Israeli army arrested 3 citizens hours ago during a raid on the towns of Idhna and Surif, west of Hebron. The agency added that the Israeli occupation forces arrested 6 citizens – including a child and siblings – in the centre of Bethlehem.
On the ground, the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, said that it targeted a military bulldozer and two Israeli Merkava tanks with strobe charges east of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, amid continuing clashes with the invading occupation forces. Al-Qassam added that it targeted an Israeli foot force with an anti-personnel device east of Khan Yunis, killing and wounding them.
It also said that it detonated an anti-personnel device against an Israeli force of 4 soldiers near the tunnel east of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, noting that it left its members dead and wounded. It also bombed a gathering of occupation vehicles and soldiers east of Khan Yunis with heavy-calibre mortar shells. The brigades have also targeted a helicopter east of the city of Khan Yunis with a surface-to-air missile.
