Almost 22 months into its genocidal aggression on the Gaza Strip, Israel has carried out all types of massacres on the population of the besieged enclave, including deadly airstrikes, starvation, and the targeted killing of aid seekers.
Every civilian place in Gaza is a target for Israeli warplanes, even kindergartens
Since October 7, 2023, non-stop deadly airstrikes have been carried out by Israel across war-torn Gaza, targeting densely populated residential areas, places of worship, areas already designated as “safe zones“, hospitals, schools sheltering displaced people, and, most recently, a kindergarten.
On Monday, July 21, Israeli fighter jets struck a kindergarten in Gaza city. Several people were reported injured in the horrific assault. Footage circulated via several media outlets, showing terrorized children being evacuated from the building.
Multiple other Israeli airstrikes were launched that same day on other civilian sites in Gaza city. The central areas of Deir Al-Balah, Nuseirat Refugee camp, and Wadi Gaza were also subjected to aerial raids.
The southern city of Khan Younis, and the northern city of Jabalia were also among the areas hit by Israeli warplanes and drones. The series of strikes carried out on Monday resulted in the death of dozens of Palestinian people.
Scores of other people were also killed in a new wave of Israeli strikes across Gaza on Tuesday, July 22.
IOF continues to shoot and abduct civilians in Gaza
A number of Palestinians were killed on Monday by Israeli gunfire in two separate offensives in Gaza. The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) shot dead a Palestinian woman in her home in Deir al-Balah.
Meanwhile, a number of civilians were shot dead by Israeli special forces during a raid near the Red Cross Hospital in the southern city of Rafah.
Journalist Tamer Al-Zaanin was killed, while his fellow colleague Ibrahim Abu Ashiba sustained injuries in the lethal attack that resulted in the abduction of senior Palestinian health official Dr. Marwan Al-Hams.
Dr. Al-Hams is the director of field hospitals in the Gaza Strip, and the head of Abu Yousef Al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza denounced the abduction of Al-Hams as “a grave violation” of international humanitarian law.
For its part, Gaza’s Government Media Office described the operation as “a full-fledged war crime”.
Israel has used starvation as a weapon of genocide
The last few days saw a drastic increase in the number of people who died in Gaza due to malnutrition and starvation, which resulted from Israel’s aid blockade.
At least 101 people have been starved to death, including 80 children, throughout nearly 22 months of Israel’s brutal war. Most of these fatalities were reported in recent weeks, according to Palestinian health officials.
The humanitarian disaster sharply escalated in early March 2025, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a total blockade on the entry of humanitarian aid into the besieged strip. However, Israel has used starvation as a weapon against civilians from the beginning of the genocide.
In a report published on May 28, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that Israel has “deliberately engineered and implemented a systematic starvation policy” since it started its genocidal aggression on the Gaza strip on October 7, 2023.
The Geneva-based human rights organization accused Israel of “using hunger as a weapon of genocide against civilians”, and designing starvation tactics to “collectively degrade and completely subjugate” the Palestinian people in Gaza.
As a result of mounting international pressure against the expansion of the military operation and the aid blockade on Gaza, Netanyahu decided to allow a limited quantity of food into the enclave in late May.
However, the distribution of that minimal aid was controlled by the infamous US-Israeli Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which has turned food distribution sites into death traps, where at least 1000 people have been massacred.
Local militias of mercenaries were also recruited by Israel, to loot UN aid under IOF protection and sell some on the illicit market. These militias are even accused of being complicit in massacring hundreds of starved people at GHF’s aid delivery points.
Widespread international condemnation of the catastrophic situation in Gaza
United Nations
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned the mass shootings and killings of aid seekers in Gaza as “an atrocious and inhumane act”.
Guterres deplored the growing reports about children and adults suffering from malnutrition, and “the accelerating breakdown of humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where the last lifelines keeping people alive are collapsing.”
28 countries call for an immediate end to Gaza war
A joint statement was signed on Monday by the foreign ministers of 28 nations, calling for an immediate end to the aggression on Gaza.
The signatory countries, which include Israeli allies, are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Cyprus, Greece, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK.
“We, the signatories listed below, come together with a simple, urgent message: the war in Gaza must end now,” the statement reads.
“The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths. The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity. We condemn the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food. It is horrifying that over 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid,” the statement continues.
“The Israeli Government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable. Israel must comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law,” the ministers of the signatory countries warned.
Death toll of people killed in Gaza since October 2023 exceeds 59,100
Gaza’s Health Ministry announced on Tuesday that at least 59,106 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since it began its genocidal aggression on the besieged strip in October 2023.
The tally includes those starved to death, and aid seekers who were assassinated at food delivery centers.
The post Being bombed, starved to death, or killed while seeking food: Israel’s options for Palestinians in Gaza appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.
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