The Israeli military’s assault on Gaza City has intensified, with residential neighborhoods coming under fierce attack.
According to Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah, Gaza, the situation is dire, with “the full destruction of residential homes, the decimation of infrastructure, a full dismantling of civilian life” unfolding.
The Israeli military has been encroaching its tanks into the heart of Gaza, despite repeated warnings to civilians to flee.
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues to worsen, with at least 56 Palestinians, including 22 aid seekers, killed in Israeli attacks across the territory in 24 hours.
The enclave’s Health Ministry reported that two bodies were also recovered from the rubble of previous Israeli attacks.
The total number of aid seekers killed since May 27, when Israel introduced a new aid distribution mechanism, has reached 2,018, with more than 14,947 injured.
In addition to the violence, the situation in Gaza is exacerbated by a severe lack of food and medicine.
Three Palestinians have starved to death in the territory, bringing the total count of hunger-related deaths to 269, including 112 children.
The Health Ministry has reported that 62,122 Palestinians have been killed and 156,758 injured since Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023.
The Israeli military has claimed that its troops killed about 10 Palestinian fighters in “face-to-face combat” in the Khan Younis area of southern Gaza.
However, Hamas’s Qassam Brigades has disputed this account, claiming that its fighters killed and wounded Israeli soldiers in a raid southeast of Khan Younis.
In a separate development, an association of Italian football coaches has written to the Italian Football Federation, calling for Israel to be suspended from international competition over its actions in Gaza.
The letter, posted to the association’s website, urged world football to take action in solidarity with Palestinians by banning Israeli teams from tournaments.
The situation in Gaza remains dire, with civilians caught in the midst of the conflict.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry has condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s linking of Palestinian state recognition to anti-Semitism, saying it is “unjustified, hostile to peace, and contrary to the international consensus on the two-state solution principle”.
The ministry urged governments to “confront this Israeli arrogance that is hostile to peace and political solutions” and called for swift recognition of the State of Palestine “to protect the two-state solution and defend international law”.