Compilation of news reports – IAK staff
At least 41 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, raising the death toll since October 2023 to 50,021, the Health Ministry said on Sunday.
Among the dead were 3 municipal workers who were riding in a vehicle marked with the logos of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility.
Gaza medics issue malnutrition alert as total Israeli blockade enters fourth week
Malnutrition is spreading in Gaza, medics and aid workers in the devastated Palestinian territory are warning, as a total Israeli blockade of all supplies enters its fourth week.
There has been no sign that Israel will open entry points to allow essential aid to flow or ease its new offensive in Gaza, which started on Tuesday with a wave of airstrikes that killed 400 people, mostly civilians.
Aid officials said distributions would be reduced gradually if possible, while the provision of community kitchens that feed about a million people would get progressively more difficult.
“At some point we will just run out and things will get desperate … but even if we had supplies it would be very difficult to distribute them because the security environment means we can’t operate,” said one UN official based in Gaza.
Six out of 23 bakeries operated by the UN World Food Program have already been shut due to a lack of cooking gas, while Unrwa, the main UN agency with responsibility for Palestinians’ welfare, had stocks of about 60,000 bags of flour on Friday, enough for just six days of distribution.
“It is very clear that people are underweight. The population is very young, and children need nutritious food,” said Khamis Elessi, a senior consultant doctor in Gaza City.
Feroze Sidhwa, a US-based volunteer emergency doctor in Gaza, said the consequences of 18 months of poor diet were very evident among his patients. “We see very clearly that everyone has lost weight … I can see my surgical incisions are not healing well,” he said.
Statement from Philippe Lazzarini, the UNRWA Commissioner-General
Israeli military attacks north, south Gaza
The Israeli army began a ground offensive in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, the army said on Sunday. An army spokesman claimed that the onslaught targets Hamas infrastructure and aims to expand a buffer zone in the northern Gaza Strip.
At least five people were killed and several others wounded when an Israeli air strike targeted Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Sunday night. The attack destroyed a large section of the hospital.
The Israeli military admitted to carrying out the bombing, justifying it by claiming it was aimed at “terrorists.”
Israel also attacked sites in Syria and Lebanon on Sunday.
NOTE: Israel justifies every strike with essentially the same words, “the site was a Hamas command and control center”; it makes the same claims, “many steps were taken to reduce the chance of harming civilians,” often adding that it used “precise” munitions.
Bombing sites consistently show no evidence of Hamas use, attacks are often carried out without warning to civilians to evacuate, and cause massive damage and loss of life. (More here.)
Gaza rescue teams besieged by Israeli forces as ‘catastrophe’ unfolds
Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) workers are being besieged by Israeli forces after responding to rescue calls from the Gaza Strip’s southernmost city of Rafah on 23 March.
“We are still awaiting clearance to reach the trapped team in Rafah. Occupation forces continue to besiege four PRCS ambulances, and contact with the team remains lost,” the PRCS said in a statement on Sunday morning.
According to reports, dozens of people were executed after being surrounded by the Israeli army in Rafah.
“We warn of an imminent danger threatening the lives of more than 50,000 citizens in the Baraksat area west of Rafah Governorate after they were besieged by the Israeli occupation forces,” Gaza’s Civil Defense said.
Several paramedics were injured, and the agency said it lost contact with one of its rescue teams as they attempted to reach out to ambulances targeted by Israeli forces in Rafah.
‘There was just wave after wave’: Gaza doctors recount horror of the last week
Early on Tuesday morning, within minutes of the wave of Israeli airstrikes that broke the fragile two-month ceasefire which had brought some respite to Gaza, the emergency room of al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah was full.
“At no point were there less than 65 people in ER, all with open wounds, mainly women and children … The floor was awash with blood,” said Mark Perlmutter, a US-based volunteer orthopedic surgeon working at the hospital that morning.
Just a few kilometers away, there were similar scenes at Nasser hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis.
“There was just wave after wave,” said Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive care doctor. “As soon as patients had died or been sent elsewhere and we cleared some space, more would come in. It was chaos. One doctor stepped on a corpse on the ground as he tried to do a life-saving procedure on a child.”
Israeli military officials say 80 “terrorist” targets in 10 minutes were attacked on Tuesday morning, including leaders and key military infrastructure.
“They had been sleeping so were coming in wearing pajamas, wrapped in blankets. Often it was neighbors bringing them because the parents had been killed. It was horrific,” said Haj-Hassan.
Many of the 300 brought into Nasser hospital on Tuesday did not survive. Ahmed al-Farra, head of the pediatric and obstetrics department, said about 85 people died, including about 40 children, with an average age between six and eight years old, said Morgan McMonagle, an Irish vascular surgeon volunteering with the NGO Medical Aid for Palestine.
In a statement, the IDF said it is committed to respecting international law, “including the law of armed conflict” (continue reading here).
Report: Israel Planning More Aggressive Invasion of Gaza
According to the Washington Post, the Israeli military is gearing up for a major ground operation in Gaza that could last months or longer. Last week, Israel broke a ceasefire and hostage deal with Hamas and conducted large-scale bombings in the Strip that killed hundreds.
The Post spoke with current and former Israeli officials, who explained that “The new and more aggressive tactics” would probably include “direct military control of humanitarian aid,” “targeting more of Hamas’s civilian leadership, and evacuating women, children and vetted noncombatants from neighborhoods to ‘humanitarian bubbles.’”
The officials said those who are not evacuated would face a siege that is a “more intense version of a tactic employed last year in northern Gaza.” In 2024, the Israeli military carried out a version of the “general’s plan,” an outline for ethnic cleansing drawn up by retired IDF generals for Northern Gaza.
The plan called for the complete evacuation of all Palestinian civilians south of the Netzarim Corridor, a strip of land controlled by the Israeli military. Under the plan, if civilians don’t leave, they are to be treated as combatants and killed, either by military action or starvation (continue reading here)
Teen dies in Israeli prison as Palestinian death toll in custody rises
A 17-year-old Palestinian boy from the West Bank town of Silwad has died inside Israel’s notorious Megiddo Prison, the Palestinian Prisoners and Detainees’ Affairs Commission has confirmed.
Israeli officials informed the commission of Walid Khaled Abdullah Ahmed’s death but gave no explanation for how or why he died. The teenager had been imprisoned since 30 September 2024.
His death raises the number of Palestinian detainees who have died in Israeli custody since October 2023 to 63—a grim statistic that continues to grow as rights groups warn of worsening conditions inside Israeli prisons.
Megiddo Prison has long been known for its brutal treatment of Palestinian detainees.
NOTE: Israel is currently holding over 9,500 Palestinian prisoners in inhumane conditions where many are systematically tortured. Israel has used torture consistently since at least 1968. In the case of Gazan prisoners since October 7th, many were restrained so tightly for so long, that they required amputation of limbs; others were sodomized with burning hot objects.
350 of the current prisoners are children, 51 are women, and over 3,400 are administrative detainees – being held without charge or trial. Administrative detention is intended to be used only in “exceptional” circumstances, but Israel uses it widely. Read more here.
RELATED: Palestinian Prisoners: Harrowing Reports Of Systemic Torture – 2 articles
Israel approves oversight body for Trump’s Gaza plan
Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan submitted by Defense Minister Israel Katz to establish a new administration in the Defense Ministry tasked with enabling Palestinians to “voluntarily” leave Gaza, Israeli media reported on 23 March.
In a statement, Katz’s office says the new directorate will work to “prepare for and enable safe and controlled passage of Gaza residents for their voluntary departure to third countries, including securing their movement, establishing movement routes, checking pedestrians at designated crossings in the Gaza Strip, as well as coordinating the provision of infrastructure that will enable passage by land, sea, and air to the destination countries.”
The statement claimed that the efforts to enable Gazans who seek to migrate from the strip to do so are being carried out “subject to Israeli and international law and in accordance with the vision of US President Donald Trump.”
“We are working with all means to implement the US president’s vision, and we will allow any Gaza resident who wants to move to a third state to do so,” Katz says.
Rights groups have stated that Trump’s plan is illegal under international law and amounts to ethnic cleansing.
RELATED: Israeli government votes unanimously to remove attorney general
Israeli envoy to Austria suggests executing Gaza children in secret recording
Israel’s ambassador to Austria, David Roet, has suggested executing Palestinian minors involved in armed conflict, a secretly recorded video has revealed.
During a closed-door meeting with the local Jewish community in Innsbruck on Thursday, Roet said that “there should be a death sentence” for teenagers for “holding a gun” or a “grenade”.
He provided no evidence of children carrying weapons in Gaza.
The video was recorded two days after Israel broke the Gaza ceasefire on 18 March, by which time more than 500 Palestinians were killed, of which almost 200 were children.
Roet dismissed concerns over civilian casualties in Gaza, stating: “If you believe that there are no uninvolved [people] in Gaza… you’re believing that Israel is targeting babies intentionally, which is not correct.”
“I will play golf in Gaza, whether you like it or not,” he added.
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IMEMC Daily Reports
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – MARCH 23, 2025 (ongoing count):
- At least 51,025 Palestinians killed, 121,022 injured – including:
- at least 50,082 killed in Gaza (~15,500 children)
- at least 943 killed in the West Bank (~187 children)
- at least 112,950 injured in Gaza
- at least 8,072 injured in the West Bank
According to Palestinian authorities, at least 150 people were killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza during the ceasefire, and Israel committed at least 962 ceasefire violations since the ceasefire came into force in November.
WAR STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 (Hamas attack) – JANUARY 22, 2025 (Ceasefire):
Palestinian death toll from October 7, 2023 – January 19, 2025: at least 48,143 – including at least 47,283 in Gaza (~20,600 children), and 916 in the West Bank (~183 children). Palestinian injuries: at least 118,472 – including at least 111,629 in Gaza, and 7,000 in the West Bank.
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 – January 19, 2025: ~1,616 (or 1,590) – including ~1,139 on October 7, 2023 (~36 children), 436 (or 405) 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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