At least 62 Palestinians, including 15 people waiting for aid, were killed in Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip since dawn Saturday, Al Mayadeen’s correspondent reported. The occupation forces have continued their bombardment, focusing heavily on Gaza City as part of an operation aimed at seizing control and displacing residents.

In the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in northwestern Gaza City, three people were killed and several others were wounded after Israeli forces targeted the main street and demolished residential buildings.

One woman was killed, and others injured or reported missing, when a home was bombed in the southern Zaytoun district. In the southern Gaza Strip, an Israeli strike on a civilian vehicle in the Mawasi area northwest of Khan Younis killed one person and injured others.

In central Khan Younis, three more Palestinians were killed after an Israeli drone strike targeted a group of people on Jamal Abdel Nasser Street. Meanwhile, near Wadi Gaza bridge northeast of Nuseirat camp, Israeli gunfire caused injuries, while a displacement tent in Deir al-Balah was also struck.

Shifting military focus

Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal told Al Mayadeen that Israeli forces withdrew from Zaytoun after causing massive destruction, and the focus of operations has now shifted to northern Gaza City, particularly Sheikh Radwan, al-Nafaq, Jabalia al-Nazla, and al-Saftawi.

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Basal warned that the crisis of displacement is worsening as Israeli forces target residential towers, including the destruction of the Al-Sousi Tower in Gaza’s industrial area. He cautioned that ongoing strikes against the city’s infrastructure will soon paralyze the entire service system.

The Gaza Health Ministry said Saturday that the overall death toll from the Israeli war has risen to 64,368, with 162,367 wounded since October 7, 2023. The ministry added that the number of Palestinians killed while seeking aid has reached 2,385, with more than 17,577 others injured.

Over the past 24 hours, six more people died from starvation and malnutrition, including a child, bringing the total number of such deaths to 382, among them 135 children.

One child killed per hour

At least one Palestinian child has been killed every hour on average by Israeli forces in Gaza over nearly 23 months of war, Save the Children reported on Saturday. The number of children killed has now surpassed 20,000, a figure the organization described as one of the most appalling milestones in the ongoing genocide.

Data released by the Government Media Office in Gaza showed that at least 20,000 children, around 2% of Gaza’s child population, have been killed since October 2023. Among them were at least 1,009 infants under the age of one, nearly half of whom were born and killed during the war.

According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, at least 42,011 children have been injured, while the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities reported that 21,000 have been permanently disabled. Thousands more remain missing, many presumed buried under rubble.

Warnings of war crimes and genocide risk

Ahmad Alhendawi, Save the Children’s Regional Director for the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe, condemned the statistics as “a shameful statistic – a horrific new low in a war characterized by a constant stream of them.”

“This war is a cruel, depraved, and deliberate war on the children of Gaza and their future, a generation stolen. If the international community does not step up, we are facing the very real risk of the total annihilation of future Palestinian communities,” he grimly added.

Save the Children stressed that atrocity crimes, including crimes against humanity and war crimes, have been committed. It noted that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is reviewing whether genocide is taking place, warning that even the plausible risk of genocide is enough to legally obligate states to act.