Gaza rescuers say Israeli strikes kill 36 (2025)

Gaza rescue teams and medics said Israeli air strikes killed at least 36 people since dawn, including a family of six whose home was struck in Gaza City, AFP reports.

Six members of one family — a couple and their four children — were killed when an air strike levelled their home in northern Gaza City, the civil defence said in a statement.

Nidal al-Sarafiti, a relative of the family, said the strike came as the family was sleeping.

“What can I say? The destruction has spared no one,” he told AFP.

AFP reports that Bulgaria “received an official apology from Israel” over the death of one of its citizens, a UN worker killed in Gaza in March.

In a statement announcing Israel’s apology, Bulgaria’s Foreign Minister Georg Georgiev said such tragedies should not happen again and again expressed his condolences to the family of Marin Marinov.

“The protection of humanitarian workers had to be a top priority,” Georgiev added.

Israel’s army chief has threatened to expand the ongoing military offensive in the Gaza Strip if captives being held there by Hamas are not freed soon, AFP reports.

“If we do not see progress in the return of the hostages in the near future, we will expand our activities to a larger and more significant operation,” Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said during a visit to Gaza.

The Israeli military issued an evacuation order for Palestinians residing in two north Gaza areas ahead of a planned attack, AFP reports.

“To all of the civilians of the Gaza Strip staying in the areas of Beit Hanoun and Sheikh Zayed. This is a preliminary and a final warning … move west immediately toward Gaza City,” the military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said on X.

The Israeli military has said that the initial findings from an investigation into the death of a UN worker in the central Gaza Strip last month show he was killed by Israeli tank fire, AFP.

“According to the findings collected so far, the examination indicates that the fatality was caused by tank fire from IDF (Israeli military) troops operating in the area. The building was struck due to assessed enemy presence and was not identified by the forces as a UN facility,” the military statement said, referring to the incident on March 19.

At least 50 more Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza in the last 24 hours, bringing the death toll from Israel’s military campaign since October 2023 to 51,355, Anadolu reports citing the enclave’s health ministry.

A ministry statement said that 152 more injured people were also transferred to hospitals, taking the number of injured to 117,248.

“Many victims are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them,” it added.

Israel’s president said in Poland that the return of hostages held by Palestinian militants in Gaza was a “universal moral imperative” and called on the international community to help end “this horrific humanitarian crime”, AFP reports.

Isaac Herzog spoke from the southern city of Oswiecim, the site of the former Nazi German death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, on the occasion of the annual March of the Living to commemorate its victims.

“With a broken heart, I remind us all that even though after the Holocaust we swore ‘never again’, today — here and now — the souls of dozens of Jews are once again yearning within a cage, longing for water and freedom,” Herzog said at a ceremony.

Nearly 60 “of our brothers and sisters remain held by terrorist murderers in Gaza, in a horrific crime against humanity”, he added.

“The return of the hostages is a universal moral imperative, and I call from here — from this sacred place — for the entire international community to mobilise and end this horrific humanitarian crime.”

In Gaza, where hunger gnaws and hope runs thin, flour and bread are so scarce that they are carefully divided by families clinging to survival, AFP reports.

“Because the crossing points are closed, there’s no more gas and no flour, and no firewood coming in,” said Umm Mohammed Issa, a volunteer helping to make bread with the few resources still available.

“We’ll be in the situation where we can no longer feed our children,” the Palestinian woman said. Until the end of March, Gazans gathered each morning outside the few bakeries still operating, in the hope of getting some bread. But one by one, the ovens cooled as ingredients — flour, water, salt and yeast — ran out.

Fidaa Abu Ummayra thought she had found a real bargain when she bought a large sack of flour for the equivalent of 90 euros at Al-Shati refugee camp in the north of the territory.

“If only I hadn’t bought it,” the 55-year-old said. “It was full of mould and worms. The bread was disgusting.”

The funeral has taken place for Palestinian journalist Saeed Abu Hassanein, who was killed in an Israeli air strike on the city of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.

The Al-Aqsa Radio journalist was killed along with his wife and daughter after their tent was bombed.

An Israeli airstrike hit a police station in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, killing at least 10 people, local health authorities said, and Israel’s military said it had struck a command centre of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad groups, Reuters reports.

Medics said two Israeli missiles hit the police station, located near a market, which led to the wounding of dozens of people in addition to the 10 deaths. The identities of those killed were not immediately clear.

The Israeli military said in a statement apparently referring to the same incident that it attacked a command and control centre operated by Hamas and the allied Islamic Jihad groups in Jabalia, which fighters used to plan and execute attacks against Israeli forces.

Local health authorities said Israeli strikes have killed at least 16 other people in separate airstrikes across the enclave, bringing Thursday’s death toll to 26.

Gaza rescue teams and medics said Israeli air strikes have killed at least 22 people, including a family of six whose home was struck in Gaza City, reports AFP.

Six members of one family — a couple and their four children — were killed when an air strike levelled their home in northern Gaza City, the civil defence said in a statement.

Nine people were killed and several wounded in another strike on a former police station in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza, according to a statement from the Indonesian hospital where the casualties were brought.

Elsewhere, five people died when the tents they had sought refuge in were hit.

Another two people were killed in a strike on a home in the southern city of Khan Younis.

The funeral has taken place for Palestinian journalist Saeed Abu Hassanein, who was killed last night in an Israeli air strike on the city of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.

The Al-Aqsa Radio journalist was killed along with his wife and daughter after their tent was bombed.

Dozens more Israeli settlers have once again stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem, under the protection of Israeli police, Al Jazeera reports.

The settlers carried out provocative tours in the courtyards and performed Talmudic rituals, according to Palestinian sources in the occupied territory.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has published an itinerary for public hearings it will hold in The Hague next week to discuss Israel’s legal obligations around allowing United Nations, NGO and neutral state activity in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera reports.

The UN has asked the ICJ to provide a legal opinion on Israel’s right to limit or bar UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) operations, as well as Israel’s weeks-long ban on humanitarian aid entering Gaza.

Some 45 countries and international organisations have submitted written statements before the hearings, which will start on April 28.

Israeli representatives are not expected to attend, but Israel’s Foreign Ministry has said it will submit a written statement to the court.

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) and the Palestinian rights group Al Mezan said they have rejected the Israeli military’s investigation into the killing of 15 Palestinian rescue workers in Gaza in March, Al Jazeera reports.

“The Israeli military’s self-exonerating report appears designed to whitewash atrocities and shield perpetrators, not to deliver justice,” MAP and Al Mezan said in a joint statement.

The medical charity and rights group said the Israeli report was a “gross distortion of reality” that was designed to cover up and deflect responsibility for the slaying of the 15 emergency workers, in what has been described as a possible war crime.

Both organisations also pointed out that the only survivor of the attack — Palestine Red Crescent Society medic Assad al-Nasasrah — is still held in Israeli custody, and is one of some 300 healthcare workers abducted from Gaza by Israeli troops since October 2023.

MAP and Al Mezan said “genuine international accountability” is necessary for the killing of the 15 emergency workers.

The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has warned that Israel’s blocking of aid supplies reaching Gaza has deprived the territory’s population of the “necessities for human survival”, Al Jazeera reports.

In its latest situation assessment, OCHA had this stark message: “The Gaza Strip is now likely facing the worst humanitarian crisis in the 18 months since the escalation of hostilities in October 2023.”

According to OCHA, aid operations have stalled in the territory due to a combination of Israel’s expanding military operations, blockade on the entry of humanitarian aid and commercial supplies for more than 50 days, Israel’s killing of aid workers and attacks on their premises, as well as severe restrictions on movement in the enclave.

The situation was described by an OCHA official as the “deliberate dismantling of Palestinian life” in Gaza.

Yale has accused the protest group, Yalies4Palestine, of briefly setting up a campus encampment to protest against visiting Israeli far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Al Jazeera reports.

Ben-Gvir — who said this week that Republican lawmakers support bombing “food and aid depots” in Gaza — last night addressed the Shabtai Society, a Yale Jewish student group not officially affiliated with the school.

In a statement, Yale accused Yalies4Palestine of organising the encampment, which it said violated campus protest policies. Yalies4Palestine has denied being responsible.

A university statement said the protest “occurred only one day after Yalies4Palestine had met with Yale College officials to discuss recent policy violations and were warned that further violations would jeopardise the group’s privileges”.

“Because Yalies4Palestine has flagrantly violated the rules to which the Yale College Dean’s Office holds all registered student organisations, Yale College today notified Yalies4Palestine that the College is withdrawing its status as a registered student organisation,” the university was quoted as saying.

A funeral procession set off from the Jenin government hospital heading towards the occupied West Bank town of al-Yamoun, where Israeli forces shot Mahmoud Abu al-Haija, Al Jazeera cites Wafa news agency as saying.

The 12-year-old boy was standing in the street with a group of children earlier on Wednesday when Israeli forces opened fire and fatally wounded him in the thigh and abdomen, according to Wafa.

Israeli human rights group Yesh Din has shared photos and a video clip of Israeli settlers attacking and burning Palestinian homes and agricultural trees in the village of Sinjil, located in the northeast of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera reports.

Yesh Din, which works on rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territory, said settlers have attacked the village twice so far this week.

Israeli forces also assisted an earlier attack by firing tear gas canisters at locals trying to put out the fires started by the settlers, the rights group said, adding that one resident of the village was killed.

“The military enables this and prevents emergency services from accessing the area,” Yesh Din was quoted as saying.

It noted that the violence corresponds with the establishment of a new settler “farm outpost” near the Palestinian village.

Dr Ahmed Al Farra, director of the al-Tahrir Hospital in the Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza, has said medical treatment of children in Gaza “experiencing the most severe stages of malnutrition” is hampered by a shortage of medicine and infant formula, Al Jazeera reports.

A Gaza health ministry statement on the hospital director’s warning also featured photographs of an emaciated Palestinian child, Osama Al Raqab, who the ministry said “epitomises the suffering of children in Gaza due to the lack of proper nutrition and drinking water”.

“The Gaza Strip is experiencing stage five of malnutrition, the most severe stage according to the World Health Organisation,” the ministry said.

A deadly Israeli attack on a tent shelter west of Nuseirat, in central Gaza, has killed three children, Al Jazeera reports, citing Palestinian media.

The air strike set fire to the tent shelter of the Farajallah family.

There are also reports that the children were burned to death in the blaze.

Hamas has released a video showing an Israeli hostage alive in Gaza, speaking in Hebrew and walking through a tunnel.

The nearly three-minute clip released by the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades shows the captive speaking to the camera. AFP was unable to immediately identify him or verify when the footage was recorded.

Palestinian patients in Gaza are emerging as among the hardest-hit victims of Israel’s aid blockade, with critical medicine and medical supply shortages now pushing countless lives to the brink, Anadolu reports.

The prolonged closure of crossings since March 2 has depleted hospitals of essential resources, creating life-or-death crises for those requiring treatment, from chronic illnesses to injuries.

The Health Ministry in Gaza has repeatedly warned of the increasing medicine shortage crisis in Gaza, which affects their already poor capabilities in treating people.

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