Deborah Akinyosoye
Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 20 people Friday in the Palestinian territory, devastated by war and under a total Israeli aid blockade for two months.
Israel resumed its military campaign in the Gaza Strip on March 18 after a ceasefire that had largely halted the fighting collapsed.
Civil defence official Mohammed al-Mughayyir told AFP 20 people had been killed since dawn on Friday, including nine following the Israeli bombardment of a home in Bureij camp in central Gaza.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Thursday that at least 2,326 people have been killed since Israel resumed strikes, bringing the overall death toll since the war broke out to 52,418.
Hamas sparked the war with its unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Militants also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still being held in Gaza, including 34, the Israeli military says, are dead.
Israel says its renewed military campaign aims to force Hamas to free the remaining captives.
Israel halted aid deliveries to Gaza on March 2, days before the collapse of the ceasefire, which had come into effect on January 19.
The United Nations has repeatedly warned of the humanitarian catastrophe on the ground, with famine again looming.
On Friday, the Red Cross warned that the humanitarian response in Gaza was on the “verge of total collapse”. “This situation must not and cannot be allowed to escalate further,” Pascal Hundt, ICRC Deputy Director of Operations, said in a statement.
