Israel kills 79 Palestinians in 24 hours, steps up onslaught, famine deaths rise

GAZA, Palestine (MNTV) — In the deadliest 24-hour period in weeks, at least 79 Palestinians were killed and 228 injured across the Gaza Strip, Gaza’s Health Ministry reported Thursday.

Most of the casualties occurred in Gaza City, where Israeli forces have escalated both air and ground operations—flattening entire residential towers, severing lifelines, and deepening an already catastrophic humanitarian disaster.

Since dawn, Israeli strikes and gunfire claimed more than 40 lives across the territory, and 35 of those were in Gaza City alone. Eyewitnesses described entire blocks being engulfed by explosions, while the Israeli military detonated homes and apartment buildings via booby-trapped devices to clear resistance pockets, according to reporters on the ground.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that 25 residential towers in Gaza City have been destroyed in just two days—an act he described as necessary “to remove any threat of sniping.”

Local sources say that more than 3,600 buildings and towers have been severely damaged or destroyed in recent weeks in Gaza City alone.

One high-profile strike took down the Al-Ghafri high-rise, the tallest residential building in western Gaza City, leaving behind columns of smoke and flattened concrete. Many residents, having fled earlier waves of bombing, are forced to dig through rubble with bare hands in search of survivors.

Tuesday marked the beginning of a renewed ground offensive targeting northwestern neighborhoods of Gaza City. Israeli heavy vehicles, including tanks and bulldozers, advanced into areas such as Al-Jalaa Street, Safatawi, and around the Mukhabarat district and Al-Karama Towers.

Witnesses recounted artillery and air support pounding the periphery as forces pushed inward, forcing residents southward. Some described seeing smoke and debris rise in densely populated neighborhoods as fighters moved block by block.

In retaliation, Israeli authorities opened a narrow evacuation corridor along Salahudin Road, but few civilians have risked the crossing, citing distrust, chaos, and fear of being further displaced.

In Northern Gaza’s Shati refugee camp, strikes on homes killed at least five people; others remain missing beneath collapse. Central Gaza’s Nuseirat camp saw a tragic strike that killed a pregnant woman, her husband and child as they sheltered in their home. In Khan Younis and Al-Mawasi, airstrikes and artillery fire killed multiple displaced families, including children.

Near Al-Shifa Medical Complex, a strike hit a group of displaced families sheltering in tents, killing 13. In Sheikh Radwan, three more people died when a building was hit during shelling.

The Health Ministry also says that Israel struck Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital in three separate attacks this week, even as it housed neonatal and pediatric intensive care patients. The ministry decried the strikes as an assault on medical neutrality.

Starvation, aid blockades, and malnutrition deaths

In a chilling parallel to the violence, famine continues to claim lives. Four more Palestinians, including a child, died of acute malnutrition in the last 24 hours, bringing the famine-linked death toll to 435, with 147 of them children. The ministry said these deaths are a direct consequence of Israel’s forced starvation measures—cutting off food, fuel, and medical supplies.

Further tragedy struck civilians who dared to reach for aid. Nine Palestinians were shot dead and over 33 wounded by Israeli fire while attempting to collect humanitarian relief in the past day, raising the death toll among aid seekers since May 27 to 2,513, with more than 18,414 injured.

Since March 2, Israeli authorities have fully sealed Gaza’s border crossings, starving the enclave of essential supplies and pushing the population of 2.4 million to the brink.

For the second consecutive day, Gaza City has been cut off from the world. The Palestinian Telecommunications Regulatory Authority confirmed that fixed landline and internet services collapsed across the northern and central sectors after key cables and infrastructure were damaged in airstrikes.

Residents say the blackout has worsened panic, silenced emergency calls, and made coordination of rescue or medical responses nearly impossible. Many fear the isolation is part of a broader strategy to obscure casualties and suppress information.

Since October 2023, the Health Ministry says 65,141 Palestinians have been killed and 165,925 wounded in the ongoing conflict. The casualties disproportionately include women, children, the elderly and noncombatants.

Independent estimates, however, suggest the true numbers may be significantly higher.

The United Nations has labeled the situation in Gaza “horrendous,” and various UN investigations have accused Israel’s campaign of genocide—a charge Israel rejects. UN Secretary-General António Guterres described the military operations as “morally, politically and legally intolerable.”