Gaza’s Health Ministry said Tuesday that Israeli attacks killed 17 Palestinians and wounded 69 more over the previous 24-hour period as US-backed Israeli strikes continue to pound the Strip.
The Health Ministry’s numbers account for dead and wounded Palestinians brought to hospitals. “There are still a number of victims under the rubble and on the streets, and ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them,” the ministry wrote on Telegram.
Israeli attacks included the bombing of the entrance to a field hospital in al-Mawasi, an area of tent camps on the coast Israel has designated a so-called “humanitarian zone” but continues to bomb. A hospital spokesman told The Associated Press that the strike killed a medic and wounded nine other people, who were all either patients or medics.
So far, the Israeli military hasn’t commented on the attack. The IDF has systematically targeted medical infrastructure in Gaza, and the latest strike on a hospital came two days after Israeli airstrikes destroyed the al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza City, a Christian-run facility, which was targeted on Palm Sunday. The IDF claimed the hospital was used as a Hamas “command and control center” but offered no evidence.
Also on Tuesday, Gaza’s Health Ministry released a statement warning about the shortages of medical supplies as Israel has imposed a total blockade on all goods entering the Strip since March 2.
“The medicine shortage crisis is hampering medical teams’ ability to provide emergency care to the wounded,” the ministry said. “Hundreds of patients and wounded are without access to medicine, and their suffering is increasing with the closure of the crossings.”
The ministry said that since Israel fully resumed its genocidal war on March 18, 1,630 Palestinians have been killed, and 4,302 have been wounded.
The ministry also said that its recorded death toll since October 2023 has reached 51,000, and the number of wounded has climbed to 116,343. Gaza’s Government Media Office has said that including Palestinians who are missing and presumed dead under the rubble brings the death toll to about 62,000. Other estimates that account for indirect deaths caused by the US-backed Israel siege put the death toll in the hundreds of thousands.