Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Saturday that Israeli air strikes killed at least 19 Palestinians since dawn on Saturday, including women and children, in the territory’s north.
An air strike hit tents housing displaced Palestinians in the southern area of Khan Younis, killing at least nine people, including children and women, civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
The Palestinian Red Crescent also confirmed the toll, saying 11 others were wounded in the strike and were taken to Nasser Hospital.
A second air strike killed five people, including children, and injured about 22 when “Israeli warplanes hit Fahad Al-Sabah school”, which had been turned into a shelter for “thousands of displaced people” in the Al-Tuffah district of Gaza City, Bassal said.
The dead and injured were taken to Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, he added.
There is also a strong likelihood that famine is imminent in parts of northern Gaza, where Israeli forces are conducting a brutal offensive and siege, hunger experts warned on Friday.
An alert issued by the four experts called the humanitarian situation throughout the war-torn Gaza Strip “extremely grave and rapidly deteriorating” and worst in the north.
The Famine Review Committee warned that “famine thresholds may have already been crossed or else will be in the near future.”
The committee’s four independent experts are part of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, which is made up of a network of 15 U.N. and other organizations that monitor global hunger and food security.
The experts said all actors in the war in Gaza must take immediate action “within days not weeks … to avert and alleviate this catastrophic situation.”
