ISRAEL’s continued assault on Gaza has killed at least 89 Palestinians in the past 24 hours, including 31 people seeking aid, and injured 513 others, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The overall death toll since 7th October 2023 has now risen to 61,499, and 153,575 wounded.
Deaths from starvation are also climbing. Five more people, including two children, have died in the past day, taking famine fatalities to 227, among them 103 children.
Hospitals report staff collapsing from hunger and exhaustion.
At Gaza City’s Al-Oyoun Hospital, the director said doctors are sometimes put on intravenous fluids themselves, so they can keep operating, as food and medicines remain scarce.
Aid remains throttled. In the last two weeks just 1,210 aid trucks entered Gaza, roughly 14% of what is needed.
Agencies say at least 600 trucks daily for months are required to push back famine.
Since early March, more than 90,000 trucks have been blocked at the sealed crossings, leaving around 500,000 people at immediate risk of famine and every child under five vulnerable to severe malnutrition.
Global protests have surged over the targeted killing of five journalists on Sunday.
In Ramallah, crowds marched with flags and photographs.
Hundreds rallied in Tunis, while vigils were held in Berlin and across the Netherlands.
Demonstrators gathered in London, Belfast and Dublin on Monday.
In Washington, DC, protesters assembled outside a building housing several major media outlets, ‘banging pots and pans’ to disrupt broadcasts.
Organiser Hazami Barmada said the outlets had created ‘public consent for the murder of these journalists … by making excuses for the Israeli government to target and kill them.’
Press freedom group PEN America said the killings ‘raise grave concerns’ and ‘could amount to a war crime’, adding that colleagues are now forced to defend the dead rather than mourn them.
Australia’s journalists’ union condemned the ‘targeted killing’ and demanded Israel lift its ban on international reporters entering Gaza.
Meanwhile, Israeli leaders are escalating plans for control of Gaza.
Far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich urged annexation, settlement, and permanent Israeli sovereignty over large parts of the Gaza Strip, rejecting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s phased military plan approved by the Security Cabinet.
Knesset member Zvi Sukkot threatened early elections unless a ‘more aggressive war plan’ is adopted.
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