New week, more deaths, today is 198 days since Oct 7.
Deaths, injuries reported as Israeli forces bomb Gaza
The Wafa news agency is reporting multiple casualties after Israeli forces launched pre-dawn attacks on areas in central and southern Gaza.
These include artillery attacks on the Al Maghazi camp and air attacks on the Bureij and Nuseirat refugee camps in central Gaza. Air raids also targeted southern Khan Younis.
Israeli shell hits al-Awda Hospital as gunboats target Gaza coast
Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic are now reporting that an Israeli shell has hit the upper floor of al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp. AJA correspondents on the ground also say Israeli gunboats have been bombing the coastline of central and southern Gaza.
Bakeries resume production in north Gaza after WFP deliveries
The World Food Programme says it delivered fuel and wheat flour to bakeries in northern Gaza “so they can begin production again after 170 days of being inoperable”.
“Four bakeries are now up and running and WFP is urgently working to deliver more supplies,” the UN organisation added.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in northern Gaza are at risk of famine as ongoing fighting and Israel’s limited entry of aid has decimated its food supply.
#Gaza: WFP has delivered fuel and wheat flour to bakeries in the north so they can begin production again after 170 days of being inoperable.
Four bakeries are now up and running and WFP is urgently working to deliver more supplies. pic.twitter.com/thZUAEdwaw
— World Food Programme (@WFP) April 22, 2024
Relative of dead children asks: ‘What did they do?’
Reaction continues after an Israeli air strike on a family home killed 24 people, including 16 children and six women, in southern Rafah. “These children were sleeping. What did they do? What was their fault?” asked one relative Umm Kareem.
Mohammed al-Beheiri said his daughter, Rasha, and her six children, the youngest 18 months old, were among the dead. A woman and three children were still under the rubble, he said. Resident Umm Hassan Kloub, 35, said her children screamed when they “woke up to a nightmare of an explosion”.
“Every second we live in terror, even the sound of Israeli aircraft doesn’t stop,” she said.
Israel’s attack on Gaza has killed more than 14,500 children. The war has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians – at least two-thirds of them children and women – since last October.
Mass grave in Khan Younis among ‘the most unthinkable war crimes’
Gaza’s civil defence crews continue exhuming human remains from a mass grave at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis as grieving relatives collect bodies wrapped in white shrouds. At least 210 bodies have been recovered so far, rescue workers say.
Resident Umm Mohammed al-Harazeen came to the hospital hoping for news of her husband. He has been missing since Israeli forces entered Khan Younis months ago. “We have been searching for him, but to no avail.”
The US Campaign for Palestinian Rights denounced the killings on social media. “These mass graves are obvious evidence of genocide and the most unthinkable war crimes,” it said.
The group noted news of the mass killings came as the US House of Representatives approved a bill for $14bn in military aid “while Israel threatens a full scale ground invasion to massacre Palestinians in Rafah”.
Israel intensifies attacks on Gaza’s refugee camps
You can hear the sound of Israeli drones across Rafah, including reconnaissance aircraft, flying low across the city. About 1.5 million displaced Palestinians are bracing themselves for the expansion of the ground invasion here.
They don’t know where to go. Rafah has been the last refuge for people here for the past six months.
People are still coming to terms with the aftermath of the past 24 hours. At least 24 people have been killed, mostly women and children, inside residential homes by Israeli strikes.
The Israeli military continues to pound Gaza, right now concentrating attacks in central areas where refugee camps are being repeatedly hit – their health facilities, residential buildings and infrastructure destroyed.
People are literally being herded from one place to another. We can safely say the entirety of the Gaza Strip has been equally targeted.
