Gaza City (OCHA, Al Jazeera, Wafa): Between the afternoons of 20 and 21 February, according to the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Gaza, 118 Palestinians were killed, and 163 Palestinians were injured in Gaza by Israeli indiscriminate bombings.

Between 7 October 2023 and noon on 21 February 2024, at least 29,313 Palestinians were killed, including 12,300 children in Gaza and 69,333 Palestinians were injured, including 8,663 children by Israeli bombings according to MoH in Gaza. 8,000 Palestinians are missing.

Intense Israeli bombardment from air, land and sea continues to be reported across much of the Gaza Strip, resulting in further civilian casualties, displacement, and destruction of civilian infrastructure. Ground operations and heavy fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups also continue to be reported, particularly south of Gaza city and Al Mawasi area northwest of Khan Younis, where tens of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) are currently located.

Khan Younis’ besieged Nasser Medical Complex has become “place of death”, says UN official after aid visit.

An official with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has described “appalling” conditions inside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, which have transformed “a place of healing” to “a place of death”.

Jonathan Whittall, senior humanitarian affairs officer with the OCHA, made his comments during a mission to the besieged hospital with the WHO and the Palestine Red Crescent to evacuate the most critically ill who have been trapped inside for weeks amid Israeli bombardments.

“There are 150 patients in one of these buildings. They have no food and water, no electricity. There’s very few doctors and nurses that are remaining inside this hospital. The conditions are appalling,” Whittall said in a video posted on social media.

“There are dead bodies in the corridors. Patients are in a desperate situation. This has become a place of death, not a place of healing.

“This is a preventable tragedy that should not have happened”.

Eight patients at Nasser Hospital have died after generators shut off due to lack of fuel, the Gaza Health Ministry says.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) is warning of the dire situation at al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis “due to the ongoing siege and targeting by the Israeli occupation for the 30th consecutive day”.

The PRCS says it is, once again, calling on the international community to take immediate action to protect the hospital and “to lift the imposed siege before it is too late and the hospital is forced out of service”.

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said that the humanitarian situation in Gaza continues to spiral out of control.

“The health and humanitarian situation in Gaza is inhumane and continues to deteriorate,” Ghebreyesus told reporters, adding that “on a broader level, Gaza has become a death zone.”

Israeli occupation forces today killed a Palestinian child in cold blood in the town of Azzun, east of Qalqilya city, reports Wafa news agency.

The Ministry of Health said that the 14-year-old child Fadi Saeed Suleiman died a result of a direct gunshot wound that penetrated his heart.

He was later rushed with a critical gunshot wound to hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after.

At least eight Palestinian patients were killed today after the electrical generator was stopped operating, which caused oxygen to ran out at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis.

The sources added that the bodies of the eight people began to show signs of decomposition, jeopardizing the safety of other patients.

Medical source pointed out that the Israeli occupation forces refused to allow the ambulance and civil crews from burring the people killed inside the Complex.

PRCS called on international institutions to immediately intervene to put pressure on Israel to bury the bodies of the eight people in the Nasser Medical Complex.

Earlier today, the Palestinian Red Crescent had announced the evacuation of 21 wounded from Nasser Medical Complex, after it was out of service.

The occupation artillery bombed the vicinity of the Nasser complex, wounding a number of citizens and damaging buildings. The occupation forces are still besieging the Complex.

The Israeli army targeted the headquarters of the Red Crescent Ambulance Center housing a large number of wounded individuals and tents sheltering displaced people.

Meanwhile, Israeli tanks and army vehicles razed the mass graves inside the complex, which has been under a strict military siege for about 31 days.

Dozens of Palestinian civilians were killed and injured last night and at dawn today during the ongoing Israeli occupation bombardment of the Gaza Strip by land, sea and air.

WAFA correspondent said that the Israeli air force launched fire belts on residential squares in Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City, targeting dozens of homes, killing and wounding dozens, the majority of whom are still under the rubble of homes owned by several families.

He added that the Israeli artillery targeted with dozens of shells civilian homes in Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, as the Israeli drones fired at Palestinian homes and at everything moving in the neighborhood’s alleys and streets.

He pointed out that civil defense crews and ambulances were unable to reach the targeted areas in the neighborhood to recover the bodies of the slain civilians and transport the injured.

WAFA correspondent stated that the people of Al-Zaytoun neighborhood are living in difficult humanitarian conditions, amid a risky forced displacement process towards the western neighborhoods of the city, especially Al-Rimal neighborhood and Al-Shifa Hospital.

Meanwhile, the Israeli air force launched a series of raids that targeted several neighborhoods of Gaza City, especially Tal Al-Hawa, Al-Sabra, and Al-Shuja’iya, killing a number of people and injuring others, most of whom were transferred to Al-Shifa Hospital.

WAFA correspondent said that the Israeli air force attacked two houses in Nuseirat camp, killing seven Palestinians, including children, and injuring about 15 others, who were transferred to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in nearby Deir al-Balah.

In Khan Yunis, the Israeli artillery bombed the vicinity of Nasser Hospital, wounding several Palestinians and damaging buildings.

Six Palestinians were killed, and others injured, in an Israeli bombing of a civilian vehicle on Abu Hosni Street in the city of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, WAFA correspondent said.

In Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, Israeli air force bombed three homes in Shaboura camp in the center of the city, as the Israeli navy fired several shells that fell in the vicinity of the tents of the displaced people in Al-Mawasi area, west of Rafah, wounding many of them. They were transferred to Abu Youssef Al-Najjar, Emirati and Al-Kuwaiti hospitals in the city.

The city of Rafah is the last refuge for the displaced people in the stricken Strip. Since the beginning of the ground operation launched by Israel on the Gaza Strip on October 27, civilians have been asked to go from the north and center of the Strip to the south, claiming that they are “safe areas,” but they were not spared from the bombing.

Nowadays, Rafah, despite its narrow area, which is estimated at about 65 square kilometers, is a refuge more than 1.3 million Palestinians, the majority of them live in tents that lack the minimum requirements for life.

In the northern Gaza Strip, WAFA correspondent, citing medical sources, said that a number of citizens with chronic diseases died as a result of not receiving medical care and running out of medicine, food and water.

More than half a million citizens who have not left their homes reside in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, and are at risk of death from starvation.

The Israeli forces prevented the delivery of food aid trucks to civilians in the northern part of the Gaza Strip as aid convoys were bombed.

According to Israeli government 1,139 Israelis were killed by Hamas on 7 October in southern Israel and 134 Israelis and foreign nationals are still detained by Hamas in Gaza.

[Photo: Injured Palestinian child treated at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital following the Israeli attacks on Nuseirat Refugee Camp in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on 21 2 24. Photojournalist: Ali Jadallah/ AA]