Israeli forces completely surround Rafah

A funeral ceremony is held in front of Nasser Hospital for the Palestinians who lost their lives in the Israeli army attack on the tents of displaced Palestinians in Al-Mawasi area in Khan Younis. (Anadolu/Getty Images)

Compilation of news reports – IAK staff

Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip killed at least 21 Palestinians, the Health Ministry said on Saturday.

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.

Gazans struggle to find water as clean sources become increasingly scarce

Hundreds of thousands of Gaza City residents have lost their main source of clean water in the past week after supplies from Israel’s water utility were cut by the Israeli army’s renewed offensive, municipal authorities in the territory said.

Many now have to walk, sometimes for miles, to get a small water fill after the Israeli military’s bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza City’s eastern Shujayea neighborhood, in the north of the Strip, damaged the pipeline operated by Israeli state-owned Mekorot.

On March 22, a joint statement by the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics and the Water Authority said more than 85% of water and sanitation facilities and assets in Gaza were completely or partially out of service.

Palestinian and United Nations officials said most of Gaza’s desalination plants were either damaged or had stopped operations because of Israel’s power and fuel cuts.

“Due to the extensive damage incurred by the water and sanitation sector, water supply rates have declined to an average of 3-5 liters per person per day,” the statement said.

That was far below the minimum 15 liters per person per day requirement for survival in emergencies, according to the World Health Organization indicators, it added.

RELATED: ‘Hell on earth’: Red Cross says vital supplies running out in Gaza

Municipal officials in Gaza City have reported that hundreds of thousands of residents have been left without clean drinking water over the past week (Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Israeli military surrounds Rafah, threatens to expand operations to “most of Gaza’s territory”

The Israeli military announced on 12 April that it had completed the capture of the so-called Morag Corridor in the southern Gaza Strip, cutting off the city of Rafah from Khan Younis.

Israel’s buffer zone in southern Gaza will encompass the entire city of Rafah, which has largely been destroyed, and extend to the outskirts of Khan Younis, an area equal to 20 percent of the Strip.

Earlier this week, the AP reported that Israel was already occupying 50 percent of Gaza’s territory, including a buffer zone stretching along the Israel-Gaza border in which the military has “razed Palestinian homes, farmland and infrastructure to the point of uninhabitability.”

Israel Katz, Israel’s defense minister, said on Saturday the capture of the Morag Corridor effectively turns Rafah into an “Israeli security zone.”

In a statement, Katz threatened Palestinians in Gaza, saying, “This is the last chance to banish Hamas and release all hostages, stopping the war,” adding that If they do not, Israeli operations will spread to “most of Gaza’s territory.”

Katz also said that the Netzarim Corridor, a route in central Gaza that divides the Strip into two parts, north and south, will also be expanded.

IDF unit involved in Gaza paramedics’ killing was under command of brigade led by notorious Israeli general

The Israeli military (IDF) unit involved in the killings of 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers in the Gaza Strip last month was under the command of a brigade led by a notorious Israeli general previously accused by some of his own troops of having “contempt for human life”.

The IDF has confirmed that troops from Golani, one of the army’s five infantry brigades, opened fire on two convoys of ambulances in Rafah on 23 March and dug a mass grave to cover the bodies of those killed until the corpses could be retrieved by a UN team six days later. It has disputed allegations from two witnesses who exhumed the bodies and newly released postmortem results that found several of those killed had close-range gunshot wounds to the head and chest and were discovered with their hands or legs tied.

Field operatives from Unit 504, a military intelligence unit with a reputation for cruelty and reckless behavior, including torture, were also present during the attack, a senior military intelligence source with knowledge of recent IDF deployments in southern Gaza told the Guardian. The Israeli military declined to comment on whether 504 was involved.

During the Rafah attack, the Golani troops were under the command of the reservist Armoured 14th Brigade. The 14th Brigade is part of a division led by Brig Gen Yehuda Vach, who former officers say designated an unofficial “kill zone” elsewhere in the strip which resulted in the arbitrary killings of Palestinian civilians. Soldiers also alleged Vach’s “lack of operational discipline” endangered soldiers’ lives.

Vach has also told troops “there are no innocents in Gaza”, according to an investigation by the Israeli daily Haaretz (continue reading here).

Mass execution of paramedics and rescue workers in Gaza: Israeli forces ambushed & executed 15 rescue workers, then buried them in a mass grave. (EuroMed Monitor)

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The Guardian: Pro-Palestinian protester’s lawyer stopped and searched at US border: ‘They were going to take my device’

IMEMC Daily Reports

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – APRIL 12, 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 12, 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.

Hover over each bar for exact numbers. Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org

Israeli forces completely surround Rafah – War on Gaza Day 554