Gaza's humanitarian crisis deepens: Israel's relentless attacks on civilians and healthcare

Israel continues its attacks on the Gaza Strip, after it bombed the Noura Al-Kaabi Kidney Dialysis Centre in the northern Gaza Strip and opened fire on thousands of civilians gathered at a distribution site in southern Gaza’s Rafah, over two days.

The Gaza Government Media Office said Israeli forces killed at least 31 people when they opened fire at the distribution site.

The Government Media Office condemned the attacks and described distribution sites as “mass death traps, not humanitarian relief points”.

“We confirm to the entire world that what is happening is a systematic and malicious use of aid as a tool of war, employed to blackmail starving civilians and forcibly gather them in exposed killing points, managed and monitored by the occupation army and funded and politically covered by the US administration,” it said in a statement.

The Noura Al-Kaabi Kidney Dialysis Centre was providing dialysis services to kidney patients in the northern Gaza Strip.

"The destruction of the centre puts the health of kidney patients in a catastrophe with unpredictable consequences. 41% of kidney failure patients died during the war due to being denied access to dialysis centres and after the destruction of the centres and departments designated for them," said the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza.

Gaza death toll and alarming stats

According to a statement released by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, the death toll from the attacks has risen to 54,470 martyrs and 124,693 injuries since October 7, 2023.

Over the past 24 hours, 52 were killed and 503 were injured at the time of publishing.

It is reported that victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, but ambulance and civil defence crews cannot reach them.

The United Nations said more than 632,000 Palestinians have been displaced since Israel broke the nearly two-month-old ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza on March 18.

It is believed that Mediators Qatar and Egypt announced renewed efforts to secure a ceasefire deal based on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce and the entry of humanitarian aid.

Gaza is the 'hungriest place on Earth'

According to a spokesperson of UN humanitarian affairs coordination office OCHA, Jens Laerke, Gaza is the hungriest place on Earth.

Laerke emphasised that it is the only defined territory in the world where the entire population is at risk of famine.

Laerke stated that out of nearly 900 aid trucks that were approved to enter from the Israeli side since the reopening of the Kerem Shalom border crossing between Israel and the war-torn enclave ten days ago, less than 600 have been offloaded on the Gaza side.

The OCHA spokesperson stressed that the limited number of truckloads coming in is a “trickle”.

“It is drip-feeding food into an area on the verge of catastrophic hunger,” he said.

Laerke added that many of the trucks were “swarmed by desperate people” on the way.

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