Gaza City, June 10 (RHC)-- The death toll from Israeli strikes on a densely-populated refugee camp in central Gaza has risen to 274, with hundreds of more civilians injured in the attack.
In an update on Sunday, Gaza’s Health Ministry said 274 Palestinians were killed - up from 210 it reported on Saturday - and 698 were injured when Israeli force stormed into the densely populated al-Nuseirat camp. The statement noted some victims remained under the rubble amid heavy bombardment and a lack of rescue crews.
Israeli forces launched the raid in broad daylight, claiming to strike at military infrastructure in the camp as part of a "rescue operation." But witnesses and journalists on the ground say Israel bombed residential buildings, leading to higher casualties.
Global condemnations poured in over the weekend after the Israeli regime’s latest act of aggression.
Doctors described the scenes inside al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza as a “complete bloodbath,” with one medic saying the inside of the hospital “looks like a slaughterhouse.” Doctors Without Borders (MSF) says Al-Aqsa and Nasser hospitals are “overwhelmed.”
Israel on Sunday continued to pound various parts of the besieged Gaza Strip with its indiscriminate airstrikes and artillery fire over the past few hours. In the southern city of Rafah, Israeli shelling of a residential neighborhood took the lives of at least two Palestinian civilians.
The Israeli forces also targeted another residential building in Bureiji camp as well, which resulted in the death of at least three more Palestinians. Since May 7, the Israeli military has taken full control of the crucial crossing from the Palestinian side and even launched attacks against the Egyptian side.
Israeli tank forces have since seized Gaza’s entire border strip with Egypt running through Rafah to the Mediterranean coast and invaded several districts of the city, prompting around one million displaced people who had been sheltering in Rafah to flee elsewhere.
A staggering one million people have now fled Rafah in southern Gaza, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA. “All UNRWA shelters in Rafah have been vacated. Many of the people who were based in Rafah have fled up the coast seeking safer locations in both Khan Younis and the middle area [of Gaza],” UNRWA said in a statement.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has called for an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council to discuss Israel’s recent carnage in the Nuseirat refugee camp.
The latest casualties bring Gaza’s total death toll since October 7 to at least 37,084, most of whom are women and children. Thousands more are feared buried under the rubble.
