Israeli attacks kill dozens in Gaza, health ministry says

By Adam Rasgon

The latest round of Israeli attacks in a renewed military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed dozens of Palestinians, the territory’s Health Ministry said Saturday.

The ministry said that 92 dead and 219 wounded people had arrived at hospitals over the past 48 hours. Gaza health officials do not differentiate between civilians and combatants in casualty counts.

Since the collapse last month of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, Israel’s military has Aembarked on a major bombing campaign and seized territory in Gaza. Israeli officials have said that the military is targeting militants and weapons infrastructure in a bid to compel Hamas to release more hostages held in the enclave.

More than 1,700 people have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire fell apart, and more than 51,000 people have been killed since the war began in October 2023, according to the Health Ministry.

Israel’s renewed offensive has exacted a heavy price on civilians struggling to find places to shelter and reinforced a feeling among Palestinians in Gaza that nowhere is safe.

On Friday, the Israeli military told The New York Times that Muwasi, a narrow strip of coastal land in southern Gaza, was no longer considered a “humanitarian zone.” Earlier in the war, the Israeli military repeatedly instructed Palestinians to go to Muwasi, which it had described at the time as a “humanitarian zone.”

Large numbers of Palestinians are still living in the Muwasi area in tent encampments.

Since the ceasefire broke down, Avichay Adraee, an Arabic-language spokesperson for the military, has instructed some Palestinians to go to shelters in Muwasi without describing the area as a “humanitarian zone.”

While many Palestinians in Gaza were still under the impression that the area held a special status, it is not clear whether the Israeli military ever informed them that it was no longer designated a “humanitarian zone.”

The Health Ministry’s statement Saturday did not clarify where the people were killed in the latest round of bombings. But the Palestinian Civil Defense, an arm of the Hamas-run Interior Ministry, said it had recovered bodies in northern and southern Gaza over the past two days.

Securing food and water in Gaza has become an increasingly difficult task as Israel continues to block the entry of aid supplies and commercial goods and as humanitarian groups struggle to guarantee the safety of their workers.

On Tuesday, the results of a survey of 43 aid groups showed that almost all had either suspended or reduced their operations in Gaza since Israel resumed its offensive in March.

“Survival itself is now slipping out of reach and the humanitarian system is at breaking point,” the leaders of 12 humanitarian groups said in a joint statement, adding that they were demanding that “all parties” ensure the safety of aid workers and permit “unfettered access of aid into and across Gaza.”

“Let us do our jobs,” they said.

On Thursday, UNRWA, a United Nations agency that aids Palestinians, said that the latest effort to vaccinate against polio in Gaza had been “postponed until further notice,” citing both Israeli airstrikes and evacuation orders.

Hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza have received shots since 2024, according to UNRWA.