By Abdul Adil

Gaza City, (AA, Wafa): At least  81 Palestinians have been killed and at least 200 others injured by Israeli indiscriminate bombings in the last 48 hours in Gaza Strip, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. this brings total number of Palestinians killed since 7 October 2023 to 34,735  including 14,944 children and 9,849 women and 78,108 others injured according to Ministry of Health.

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

Yet another Palestinian journalist was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Gaza Strip on Monday, taking the death toll to 142 since last October, the government media office said.

Mustafa Ayad, a photojournalist, lost his life in an attack targeting his house in Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza City, the media office said in a statement.

A number of Palestinians on Monday dawn were killed and many others were injured as a result of Israeli bombing of the city of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip as Israel continues its aggression against Palestinians for the 213th day.

22 Palestinians, including 8 children, were killed as a result of Israeli raids that targeted 11 homes in Rafah since Sunday evening.

WAFA correspondents said that 22 civilians, including eight children, were killed as a result of Israeli air raids that targeted 11 homes in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip.

They said that 4 civilians, including two children, were killed in an Israeli bombing that targeted a house owned by Abu Lebda family in Al-Geneina neighborhood, east of the city of Rafah, while 9 people, including four children, were killed as a result of an Israeli bombing that targeted a house owned by Qishta family in Al-Salam neighborhood in the city of Rafah.

An air strike also targeted Khirbet Al-Adas, northeast of the city.

Earlier Sunday, civil defense crews in Gaza had recovered five decomposed bodies of slain civilians from Al-Jaabari family, whose house was targeted near the Palestine Stadium in the city.

In the northern Gaza Strip, Israeli artillery bombed the eastern areas of the city of Jabalia, causing significant destruction and causalities among civilians.

In the meantime, Israeli warplanes also struck civilians’ homes in Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun.

Moving to the Nusseirat refugee camp, central Gaza, Israeli fighter jets targeted multiple civilians’ homes.

Simultaneously, Israeli warplanes carried out intense airstrikes on several areas east of the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, south of Gaza City.

In Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, the death toll rose to 26 persons, including 11 children and eight women as a result of the raids that targeted 11 homes in the neighborhoods of Al-Salam, Al-Jeneina, George Street in the east, and Khirbet Al-Adas in the northeast of the city.

Several people were also injured in the attacks, the sources said.

Gaza’s Civil Defense Agency said several people were still missing under the rubble of destroyed buildings.

The Israeli army issued immediate evacuation orders on Monday for Palestinians in the eastern neighborhoods of Rafah and called on them to move to the town of al-Mawasi in southern Gaza.

At least six Palestinians were killed, including two children, and several others injured in Israeli airstrikes in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

“At least six martyrs, including two children, one of them an infant, and others injured in varying degrees were brought to Abu Yousef Al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah,” a medical source informed an Anadolu Agency correspondent.

The correspondent reported that Israeli warplanes targeted a house belonging to the Qeshta family on George Street opposite Haroun Al-Rashid Mosque without prior warning, resulting in fatalities and injuries.

He added that another airstrike by Israeli warplanes occurred in the Al-Salam neighborhood, which had been previously warned.

Several Palestinians were killed and injured in an Israeli airstrike near a school housing displaced people in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday, according to witnesses.

Fighter jets carried out a raid near the entrance of Al-Jaouni school in the Nuseirat refugee camp, witnesses said.

The attack has caused a state of panic and fear among thousands of displaced people inside the school, they added.

The Health Ministry has yet to issue an exact death toll from the attack.

Two Palestinians were killed and six others seriously injured in a fresh Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on Sunday, according to medical sources.

The attack targeted a house in the Zaytoun neighborhood, the sources said.

Witnesses reported massive destruction in the area from the strike.

The Israeli army bombed a building belonging to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in the Gaza Strip late Sunday, local media reported.

Israel’s state broadcaster KAN said Israeli forces claimed the building was a “military command center” used by the Palestinian group Hamas.

Apart from the attack, many people died in airstrikes carried out by Israeli warplanes on two schools in Gaza where displaced families had taken shelter.

Meanwhile, UNICEF warned on Monday that 600,000 children in Rafah have “nowhere safe to go,” cautioning against forced displacement and attacks.

The UN agency issued a statement following the Israeli military’s notification calling for evacuation of some neighborhoods in eastern Rafah where displaced Palestinians have sought shelter.

Highlighting that hundreds of thousands of children live in Rafah, it said: “UNICEF is calling for the protection of civilians and the infrastructure that supports their basic needs, such as hospitals and shelters, from attack and military use.”

As the humanitarian situation worsens in Gaza, the statement warned of the “catastrophic” consequences of a military attack on Rafah for 600,000 children, noting the high density of children in the region.

“Rafah is now a city of children, who have nowhere safe to go in Gaza,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in the statement.

Noting that there are “now about 1.2 million people sheltering in Rafah,” Russell said: “If large scale military operations start, not only will children be at risk from the violence, but also from chaos and panic, and at a time where their physical and mental states are already weakened.”

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

[Photo: A Palestinian child injured by Israeli attack being treated in hospital in Rafah, Gaza on 06 05 2024. Photojournalist:  Doaa Albaz /AA]