United Nations, April 13 (RHC)-- A recent analysis conducted by the United Nations has revealed that at least 36 Israeli strikes on Gaza between March 18 and April 9 have only resulted in the killing of Palestinian women and children.

The UN reported that “a large percentage of fatalities are children and women,” and hundreds of strikes have hit residential buildings and tents since Israel broke the 2-month ceasefire with Hamas on March 18th.

“Between March 18 and April 9, 2025, there were some 224 incidents of Israeli strikes on residential buildings and tents for internally displaced people,” UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva.

“In some 36 strikes about which the UN Human Rights Office corroborated information, the fatalities recorded so far were only women and children,” she said.

“Overall, a large percentage of fatalities are children and women, according to information recorded by our Office,” she added.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, at least 50,912 Palestinians were killed, and 115,981 were wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza, which began in October 2023. The Government Media Office updated its death toll to more than 61,700, saying thousands of people missing under the rubble are presumed dead.

The UN warning came as Gaza rescuers said a pre-dawn Israeli air strike killed 10 members of the same family on Friday.

“Ten people, including seven children, were brought to the hospital as martyrs following an Israeli air strike that targeted the Farra family home in central Khan Younis,” Gaza civil defence agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal said.

Footage of the house showed a heavily destroyed structure, with mangled concrete slabs and twisted metal strewn across the site.

Shamdasani also cited an April 6 strike on a residential building of the Abu Issa family in Deir al Balah, which reportedly killed one girl, four women, and one four-year-old boy.

She highlighted that even the areas where Palestinians were being instructed to go in the expanding number of Israeli “evacuation orders” were also being subjected to attacks.

“Despite Israeli military orders instructing civilians to relocate to the Al Mawasi area of Khan Younis, strikes continued on tents in that area housing displaced people, with at least 23 such incidents recorded by the Office since March 18,” the UN official said.
Shamdasani also warned that the military strikes across Gaza were “leaving nowhere safe.”

According to the UN rights office, the expanding Israeli evacuation orders were resulting in the “forcible transfer” of people into ever-shrinking spaces in the besieged Palestinian territory.

“Let us be clear, these so-called evacuation orders are actually displacement orders, leading to displacement of the population of Gaza into ever-shrinking spaces,” Shamdasani said.

“The permanent displacement of the civilian population within occupied territories amounts to forcible transfer, which is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and it is a crime against humanity.”

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric also warned on Friday that Israeli evacuation orders have left Palestinians with less than a third of Gaza to live in, citing the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

“OCHA reports that more than two-thirds of the Gaza Strip is either under active displacement orders or designated as no go zones,” he said, noting that “this leaves Palestinians with less than a third of Gaza's area to live in, and that remaining space is fragmented.”