Israeli forces commit massacre in Gaza City; death toll hits 56,531

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies + Al Mayadeen
30 Jun 2025 15:25
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Hospitals report rising numbers of victims as Israeli airstrikes continue to devastate Gaza, not sparing even schools, homes, or aid centers.

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The site of an Israeli strike that targeted the make-shift tents of displaced Palestinians in Gaza City, Palestine, on June 28, 2025. (AP)

The Gaza Strip has witnessed another devastating day of bloodshed as the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced on Monday that 28 Palestinians were killed, including three whose bodies were retrieved, and 223 others were wounded within 24 hours, amid a continued Israeli genocide that began on October 7, 2023.

In one airstrike, 31 people, most of them women and children, were killed and others were wounded in a massacre perpetrated by the Israeli occupation forces on Monday, targeting the Al-Baqa rest house on the Gaza City beach where displaced Palestinians had taken shelter.

In just one hour, 40 Palestinians were martyred and more than 100 were wounded in Gaza City.

Al Mayadeen's correspondent reported that 90 people were killed in Israeli shelling of various areas since dawn today, including 48 in Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip.

15 people were mercilessly targeted while waiting for humanitarian aid, many of whom were women and children.

Victims remain trapped under rubble

Rescue teams warn that the actual number of casualties may be even higher, as many victims remain trapped beneath debris or in areas unreachable due to heavy bombing and the collapse of civil infrastructure.

According to the latest data from the Health Ministry, the total death toll since the start of the war has reached 56,531, with 133,642 wounded, most of them women and children.

Since March 18, 2025, when the Israeli occupation resumed its aggression on Gaza following a short-lived ceasefire, the toll stands at 6,203 killed and 21,601 injured.

Israeli genocide is ongoing

The Israeli occupation has escalated its brutal campaign on the Gaza Strip, unleashing relentless airstrikes on hospitals, forcibly displacement tents, and densely populated residential areas. The latest barrage has left dozens martyred and many more wounded, marking one of the bloodiest chapters in an already devastating war.

Al Mayadeen’s correspondent described the onslaught as the most violent wave of bombings since the war began, with Israeli warplanes pounding Shuja'iyya, Zeitoun, Khan Younis, and Jabalia in a barrage of fire and destruction.

One Palestinian was killed in Israeli shelling of the Zarqa area in the al-Tuffah neighborhood, northeast of Gaza City. Meanwhile, Israeli shelling near the Daloul gas station in the al-Zaytun neighborhood, southeast of the city, left one killed and several others injured.

Our correspondent also reported that six people were killed and several others were wounded in the Israeli attack on a fuel station near the Abu Asi gas station on Al-Wahda Street in Gaza City.

Three people were killed and others were wounded in Israeli airstrikes on a group of people on Al-Ghabari Street in Jabalia al-Balad, north of the Gaza Strip. The correspondent added that at least 15 people were killed and dozens wounded, some in critical condition, among those waiting for aid in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, today.

In al-Shujaiya, the Israeli occupation forces gave residents of an entire residential block only minutes to evacuate before flattening it in an airstrike. Artillery continues to rain down on northern Bureij and eastern Zaytun, compounding the carnage.

“These are among the worst nights of Israeli strikes,” reported Al Mayadeen's correspondent.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital targeted again

In a horrifying continuation of attacks on medical infrastructure, Israeli warplanes bombed the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital for the 12th time since October 7. The strike hit a tent sheltering displaced civilians within the hospital compound, just meters from the internal medicine ward. Several were wounded, and the damage extended deep into the heart of one of Gaza’s last functioning hospitals.

The Government Media Office in Gaza condemned the repeated targeting of medical facilities as an unmistakable attempt to annihilate what remains of the Strip’s crumbling healthcare system.

“These attacks constitute flagrant war crimes and blatant violations of international humanitarian law,” the office said in a statement. It held the Israeli occupation, the US administration, and complicit governments fully responsible for what it described as a calculated campaign of destruction.

Displacement centers: Death traps

Since the assault began in October 2023, human rights groups have documented 256 attacks on displacement centers, facilities meant to offer refuge from war, now turned into death traps. These centers shelter over 700,000 displaced Palestinians, many of them children and the elderly.

In June alone, 11 displacement centers were bombed, most of them schools transformed into makeshift shelters. The targeting of these locations amounts to a double assault: against both the displaced and the very institutions that once served as places of learning and sanctuary.

Palestinian organizations have accused "Israel" and its Western allies, chiefly the United States, of enabling what they describe as a systematic genocide, calling on the international community and the United Nations to break their silence and take immediate, tangible steps to protect Palestinians and halt the bloodshed.