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by IMEMC News
July 29, 2024

Despite condemnation for having killed over 50 civilians, including many children in the bombing of a school on Saturday in Deir al-Balah, Israeli forces continued their assault on the entire civilian population of 2.24 million people in Gaza on Monday for the 297th straight day.

Update: 11:59 pm – Three Palestinians were killed and others were injured on Monday evening in an Israeli shelling of Al-Nasr neighborhood in Gaza City.

Local sources reported that three civilians were killed and several others were injured, including children and women, as a result of an Israeli bombardment that targeted a residential apartment near Al-Wahda Tower in Al-Nasr neighborhood.

The Israeli occupation has deprived 39,000 high school students in the Gaza Strip from exercising their right to education and taking the high school exams. 10,000 school and university students in the Strip were killed, including 450 high school students, in addition to 20 high school students in the West Bank. In addition, 400 teachers and 105 university professors and cadres were martyred in the Strip, in addition to the complete destruction of 286 buildings out of 307 school buildings and 31 university buildings in the Strip, according to data from the Ministry of Education and Higher Education.

The Senior Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs and Reconstruction in the Gaza Strip, Sigrid Kaag, said that the Gaza Strip has reached “a new terrible turning point in Gaza in terms of pain, destruction, trauma and loss of life.”

“Every time I go to Gaza, I find it difficult to imagine the devastation I see with my own eyes, ” she added.

Kaag pointed out that infectious diseases began to spread due to poor hygiene, especially during the hot summer months.

Kaag stressed that all humanitarian workers in Gaza face similar problems.

In response to a question about the Israeli occupation army’s bombing of the main water tank in the city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, she said that “the requirements of international humanitarian law for the parties to the conflict are very clear .”

Kaag stated that international law must be adhered to, stressing that safe access to the sector is essential in order to provide and distribute clean water and hygiene materials .

Earlier on Monday, the Israeli army admitted that its soldiers had blown up a water tank in Tel al-Sultan in the city of Rafah.

The bombing of the water tank in Gaza comes at a time when the Strip is suffering from a severe crisis in the availability of drinking water .


Update: 5:30 pm – A Palestinian civilian was killed and others were injured on Monday evening in an Israeli airstrike north of Rafah city, south of the Gaza Strip.

A correspondent with the Wafa news agency reported that the Israeli occupation forces targeted a house in the Miraj area, north of Rafah, which led to the death of a civilian and the injury of others.

The reporter stated that the Israeli occupation forces targeted a house in the Batn al-Samin area, south of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

A civilian was killed and another was injured on Monday evening, as a result of Israeli occupation forces’ shelling, south of Gaza City.

Eyewitnesses said that the Israeli occupation forces bombed a house in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, south of the city, which led to the death of a Palestinian and the injury of another.

In the same context, the Israeli occupation forces blew up a residential block in what is known as the “Block 12” area in Al-Bureij camp, in the central Gaza Strip.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said that forced eviction orders issued by the Israeli occupation army have become a daily occurrence for Gaza Strip residents, who are forced to leave in order to save their lives.

UNRWA added that families are forced to move again and again, knowing that safety does not exist anywhere in the Gaza Strip.

The UN agency renewed its call for an “immediate ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip, which has been subjected to a devastating Israeli aggression for 10 months.

First update: 10:00 am – Before dawn on Monday, the Israeli warplanes continued their ceaseless assault, this time in the Sabra neighborhood, in the south of Gaza City. The bombing killed three and injured a number of others, including children, elders and women.

The occupation forces also burned a number of civilians’ homes in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip , and blew up others in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood southwest of Gaza City, while drones fired bullets in the Al-Sina’a and Al-Maghribi streets south of Gaza City.

The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, called for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the protection of civilians and health workers.

Ghebreyesus added that he is deeply concerned about the safety of civilians and patients in Deir al-Balah, following recent reports of Israeli airstrikes on schools where many displaced people are taking refuge.

Also Sunday night, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that his country could intervene in occupied Palestine against Israel, noting that they had taken similar action in Karabakh (an Armenian-peopled region in Azerbaijan), and the Israeli minister of foreign affairs responded with a threat to kill Erdogan, reminding him of how Saddam Hussein was killed for threatening to attack Israel.

Thousands of citizens were forcibly displaced from Al-Bureij refugee camp and its outskirts in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday, after the Israeli occupation army warned them to evacuate some areas in preparation for military operations, according to the Palestinian Wafa news agency.

Eyewitnesses reported that thousands of citizens began to flee areas in Al-Bureij camp and its outskirts, and headed to the cities of Deir al-Balah and Al-Nuseirat.

The Israeli occupation army called on citizens in the Al-Bureij and Al-Shuhada areas in Blocks 660, 661, 2220, 2225 and 2348 to evacuate immediately and head to the “humanitarian zone” created in Al-Mawasi.

During the past months, the occupation army has asked citizens to leave their places of residence and head to these neighborhoods and blocks in the southern Gaza Strip, claiming that they are “humane and safe .”

The area that the occupation army claims is “humanitarian” and forces civilians to move to, lacks the most basic requirements of human life, in addition to being overcrowded with displaced people.

Israeli forces have not hesitated to bomb these so-called ‘safe areas’ if their artificial intelligence software indicates a ‘wanted’ person may be in the vicinity — despite the presence of thousands of civilians. The presence of civilians makes bombing these areas illegal under international law.

The Israeli occupation forces have continued their aggression on the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, resulting in the killing of at least 39,324 Palestinians, the majority of whom are women and children, and the injury of at least 90,830 others, while thousands of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, and ambulance and rescue crews cannot reach them. A recent report by the British magazine The Lancet indicates that the death toll may be much higher – close to 180,000, according to their estimate – although it is impossible to know, as the bombing has not ceased for even one day in Gaza since a short five-day ‘pause’ at the end of November 2023.

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