UN condemns indiscriminate killing of children in Israeli strike resulting in 14 deaths
In a devastating turn of events, Israeli warplanes targeted a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, resulting in the death of 14 Palestinians, including children, as reported by Gaza medical sources.
Expressing grave concerns, a UNICEF official has strongly condemned the “indiscriminate killing of civilians, particularly children,” in Gaza, emphasizing the urgent need for the violence to cease.
The airstrike has triggered a mass exodus with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the area once again. Following Israel’s earlier evacuations from northern Gaza in October, nearly half of Gaza’s population sought refuge there.
As the humanitarian crisis escalates, Gaza’s health authority has issued a plea for international intervention to reopen access via the southern border. This urgent call aims to facilitate the much-needed inflow of aid, medical resources, and fuel to power essential generators and ambulances in the besieged region.
“The wounded and sick suffer a slow death because there is no treatment and supplies and they cannot travel,” it said.
A foreign U.N. security staff member was killed on Monday when a U.N.-marked vehicle travelling to a hospital in Rafah was struck – the first international U.N. fatality in the Gaza war, a U.N. spokesperson said, bringing the total death toll of U.N. personnel to around 190.
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In northern Gaza’s Jabalia, a sprawling refugee camp built for displaced Palestinians 75 years ago, Israeli forces pushed into an area where they claimed to have dismantled Hamas months ago.
Residents fled along rubble-strewn streets carrying bags of belongings. Tank shells landed in the centre of the camp and health officials said they had recovered 20 bodies from overnight airstrikes.
“We don’t know where to go. We have been displaced from one place to the next… We are running in the streets. I saw it with my own eyes. I saw the tank and the bulldozer. It is on that street,” said one woman, who did not give her name.
An Israeli air strike on a house in Al-Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza Strip killed at least eight people, said Mahmoud Basal, a spokesperson of the Gaza Civil Emergency Service. He said several other people were wounded and missing.
The Palestinian death toll in the war has now surpassed 35,000, with 57 killed in the past 24 hours, according to Gaza health officials, whose figures do not differentiate between civilians and fighters.
