Dozens of Israeli airstrikes killed only women and children – war on Gaza Day 553

Compilation of news reports – IAK staff

The latest Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip killed at least 26 Palestinians, the Health Ministry said on Friday.

NOTE: The Health Ministry’s figures are based on the number of dead and wounded Palestinians brought to hospitals, and does not include victims that are under the rubble or elsewhere, where ambulance and civil defense crews can not reach them. 

The UN reported that more than 60,000 children in the Gaza Strip are suffering from malnutrition as the humanitarian situation in the region deteriorates rapidly.

An Israeli air strike killed an entire Palestinian family, including several children, on Friday by targeting a home that had previously been bombed in Khan Younis. 

The home, belonging to the family of Mazen al-Farra, was located in the al-Mahatta neighborhood, near the centre of Khan Younis. 

Although the house had been damaged in an earlier strike, the family had recently repaired it and returned to live there.

At approximately 3am, the house was struck again, resulting in the deaths of Mazen al-Farra, his wife, his mother-in-law Maryam al-Astal, and five of his children: Saeed, Ibrahim, Taqwa, Maryam and Musab. The youngest of the children was three years old. 

Also killed in the strike were al-Farra’s niece and nephew Mira and Ibrahim, aged 10 and seven, respectively.

The strike, which erased an entire family from the civil registry, came without prior warning, according to local reports. 

UN reveals 36 Israeli airstrikes in Gaza killed ‘only women and children’

Between 18 March and 9 April 2025, the UN Human Rights Office recorded 224 Israeli strikes on residential buildings and displacement camps across the Gaza Strip.

Shockingly, in 36 of those strikes, only women and children were reported killed. Overall, a significant portion of those killed in the bombing campaign have been women and children, according to UN spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani.

Shamdasani stressed that Israel’s strikes are leaving “nowhere safe” in Gaza, including areas designated for evacuation. Despite Israeli military instructions for civilians to seek refuge in Al-Mawasi and other regions, strikes have continued in those zones.

The UN has documented at least 23 attacks on tent camps housing displaced Palestinians since 18 March.

On 6 April, a strike on the Abu Issa family home in Deir al-Balah killed six civilians, including children and women. On Friday, an airstrike killed 10 members of the Farra family, including seven children, in Khan Younis.

The UN on Friday warned that Israel’s latest evacuation orders are leaving Palestinians with shrinking space to live in Gaza, further worsening the humanitarian crisis in the enclave.

In a news conference, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said that Israel on Friday issued “two new displacement orders covering vast areas in northern and southern Gaza.”

“Several medical facilities and storage sites containing critical supplies are located within newly designated displacement zones,” he added.

Citing the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Dujarric warned of “life-threatening consequences” for those in urgent need of care due to newly designated displacement zones.

“With this latest development, 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.”

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Israeli army cordons off Rafah after completing control of newly-built ‘Morag Corridor’

The Israeli army said Friday it completed the seizure of its newly established “Morag Corridor” area, fully separating Rafah, the southernmost of the Gaza Strip, from the rest of the Palestinian territory.

Israeli Army Radio said forces completed control of the Morag Corridor area, which it said extends between the Gaza-Egypt borders and the outskirts of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

It added that Rafah is completely besieged by Israeli forces.

Israeli Army Radio noted that the army will stabilize control of the Morag Corridor area in the next stage, and advance toward inside Rafah to make it “a border buffer zone” under its full control.

The Haaretz newspaper said Wednesday that the Israeli army is planning to incorporate the entirety of Rafah into a buffer zone being built along the border — an area that covers 75 square kilometers (29 square miles), or around one-fifth of the Palestinian territory.

The area, located between the Philadelphi Corridor to the south and the Morag route to the north, was home to 200,000 Palestinians before the Israeli onslaught began in October 2023.

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Gaza City official: Israel prevents water pipeline repair

A spokesperson for the Gaza City municipality says Israel’s continued disruption of the Mekorot pipeline is exacerbating the Strip’s water crisis.

The military halted the flow of water from Israeli company Mekorot to the Gaza Strip in early April, cutting off 70 percent of the Palestinian enclave’s water supply.

The spokesperson said Israeli forces are denying access to repair crews seeking to fix damaged water infrastructure, and that repairs could be made, bringing desperately needed water to parts of the city, in only 24 hours.

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Rabbis are taking control of the Israeli army instead of generals

Amid a rising wave of religious influence in Israeli political and party circles — driven by the ruling right-wing coalition —Jewish Torah-based organizations have become the largest source of donations to Israeli soldiers on military bases. These donations primarily consist of religious texts, including the Torah and the Talmud, highlighting the growing strength of the religious current.

This trend confirms that the distribution of religious books to soldiers is far from a marginal practice, despite ongoing accusations that the army is pressuring its soldiers into religious observance and prioritising religious values over the civic principles traditionally shared among Jews.

Simultaneously, the Israeli army is witnessing a growing phenomenon: a notable number of senior officers in its General Staff are wearing the kippah, the traditional knitted religious skullcap. Statistics show that nearly 40 per cent of senior military leaders now wear it, pointing to the expanding influence of religious individuals within the military leadership.

This not only reflects their growing sway over military decision-making in Israel but also raises concerns about its implications for increased military aggression against Palestinians and Arabs.

The names assigned by Israel to its aggressions on Gaza starkly reflect this growing religiosity in the military (continue reading here).

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Israel army dismisses senior commanders, hundreds of reservists calling for end of Gaza war

Israeli army Chief of Staff, Eyal Zamir, yesterday approved the dismissal of senior commanders and approximately 1,000 reserve soldiers for calling for an end to the war on Gaza.

Earlier this week, hundreds of Israeli Air Force (IAF) soldiers signed a letter slamming the military offensive in Gaza, saying it “serves mainly political and personal interests, not security interests,” while calling for the return of captives and adding that this can only be achieved through a ceasefire and not by military means.

Azmir said the fact the soldiers signed the letter is a serious matter, claiming that they cannot sign such petitions and then return to service.

Defense Minister Israel Katz “strongly” criticized the letter as an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the war.

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Israeli press review: trouble in paradise

HI-TECH BRAIN DRAIN: Around 8,300 high-tech professionals left Israel between the beginning of the war on Gaza in October 2023 and July 2024, Ynet news website reported. 

The data revealed an average of monthly emigration of 826 high-tech workers during this period, compared to 571 workers between January 2023 and September 2023.

Despite comprising less than eight percent of the workforce, high-tech professionals contributed 35 percent of income tax revenue in 2021, according to Israel’s Ministry of Finance. 

The political climate has played a key role in the growing unrest among tech professionals. “In a country where there will be no freedom, there will be no high-tech,” read a post shared on a high-tech protest group.

In addition, in 2024 alone, 1,700 millionaires left Israel, according to another report published on Ynet.

It was recently reported that since the beginning of the war, more than 80,000 Israelis have emigrated, 40 percent of them young adults between aged 20 to 40.  

POVERTY: According to a report in Maariv newspaper, organizations that distribute food have noted a significant increase in the number of people applying for assistance.

According to a report by Latet, a non-governmental organization fighting poverty, more than 2.7 million people in Israel are living in poverty as of 2024, amounting to nearly 30 percent of the population.

UNDER-REGULATED GUNS: More than 320,000 citizens currently hold a license to carry a private firearm, compared to about 170,000 before the war that began in October 2023. This number does not include the tens of thousands of security guards who carry weapons as part of their duties.

Haaretz also reports a rise in the use of private weapons for criminal purposes, citing the lack of oversight in the distribution of firearms.

* Israeli Press Review is a digest of news reports not independently verified as accurate by Middle East Eye.

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MORE NEWS:

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IMEMC Daily Reports

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – APRIL 11, 2025:

• At least 51,840 Palestinians killed, 123,947 injured – including:
• at least 50,886 killed in Gaza (~15,600 children) 
• at least 954 killed in the West Bank (~187 children)
• at least 115,875 injured in Gaza
• at least 8,072 injured in the West Bank

According to Palestinian authorities, during the ceasefire Jan. 19- March 18 2025, Israeli attacks killed at least 150 Gazans, and Israel committed at least 962 ceasefire violations.

Thousands of those killed in Gaza have yet to be identified, and an estimated 11,000 more are still buried under rubble.

Reported Israeli death toll from October 7, 2023 – April 11, 2025: ~1,592 – including ~1,139 on October 7, 2023 (~36 children), 407 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza, 46 military and civilians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel.

NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries of Israelis on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.

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