By Harun Nasrullah
London, (The Muslim News): At least 81 Palestinians, including children, were killed on Sunday in a series of Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip, according to medical sources and local reports. The Gaza Health Ministry said that 80 bodies were brought to hospitals in the last 24 hours, while 304 people were injured, bringing the total number of casualties to over 136,000 since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023. The ministry described the conflict as genocidal and warned that “many victims remain trapped under rubble and on the streets, as rescue teams struggle to reach them.”
In Gaza City, 25 people lost their lives when Israeli warplanes bombed two homes sheltering displaced families in the Sheikh Radwan and Al-Nasr neighbourhoods. Eyewitnesses described the houses as being full of sleeping families, mostly women and children, at the time of the attacks. Several people remain trapped beneath the debris.
In northern Gaza City’s Al-Saftawi neighbourhood, an Israeli drone strike killed three brothers, while another drone strike on a tent sheltering displaced Palestinians in Sheikh Radwan killed three more and injured others, according to health officials.
Further Israeli strikes hit civilian gatherings in Gaza City and the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing six people and injuring several others.
Seven people, including children, were killed when a school converted into a shelter in the Shati refugee camp was bombed. Other strikes targeted residential homes in the Al-Tuffah and Al-Daraj neighbourhoods, killing several members of the same families.
In Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, at least ten people including children and a pregnant woman were killed in two air raids on makeshift tents for displaced civilians. Another drone strike near the Al-Albani Mosque in Khan Younis killed three children among four recovered bodies.
In the Nusseirat refugee camp, eight people from the same family died in a drone strike on their tent, and three more were killed in an attack on a nearby home. Rescue operations to find those trapped beneath the rubble are ongoing.
The Israeli military also shelled residential and civilian structures in eastern Gaza City and northern parts of the enclave overnight, with residents reporting continuous explosions. A Palestinian fisherman was injured off the coast of Deir al-Balah after being struck by an Israeli shell.
Despite growing international calls for a ceasefire, the Israeli offensive continues unabated, with the Gaza Health Ministry reporting over 57,400 Palestinians killed since October 2023, the majority of whom are women and children.
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice over its actions in Gaza.
Two killed by Israeli military in West Bank
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli military raids on Sunday resulted in the deaths of two Palestinians and injuries to several others, including children, amid ongoing violence by illegal settlers.We
In eastern Nablus, 23-year-old Qusai Nassar was killed after Israeli forces opened fire during clashes following raids on Palestinian homes. Later, the Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed the death of 37-year-old
Wissam Ishtiya, who was reportedly arrested while injured before dying.
Israeli forces also fired tear gas during a raid in the town of al-Khader, south of Bethlehem, causing temporary asphyxiation among residents. Several Palestinians were detained during operations in al-Khader, Hebron, Nablus, Tulkarem, and Ramallah.
At the same time, illegal Israeli settlers forced Palestinian shepherds to abandon their grazing lands in the northern Jordan Valley, a region home to approximately 65,000 Palestinians and 13,000 settlers across 34 Palestinian communities and 38 illegal settlements.
The Israeli government controls over 80% of the Jordan Valley, designating it a strategic buffer zone and seeking to maintain a military presence there in any future peace agreement.
Palestinians have consistently insisted they will not establish an independent state without the Jordan Valley, which comprises nearly 30% of the West Bank and contains valuable natural resources.
Rawhi Fattouh, chairman of the Palestinian National Council, condemned the forced displacement of Palestinians in the Jordan Valley, describing it as “a unified colonial plan that uses killing, starvation, and siege as tools of ethnic cleansing.”
On Friday, 50 Palestinian families from the Arab Al-Mleihat Bedouin community were forcibly displaced from Jericho by settlers, according to the Al-Baydar Organisation for the Defence of Bedouin Rights. Additionally, settlers bulldozed nearly 40 dunams of Palestinian farmland in Umm Safa near Ramallah to expand a recently established outpost, municipal officials reported.
Israeli government data indicates a 30% increase in settler attacks against Palestinians this year, with 414 incidents recorded in the first half of 2025. Since the onset of Israel’s war on Gaza on 7 October 2023, at least 991 Palestinians have been killed and more than 7,000 injured in the West Bank due to Israeli military and settler violence, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
In response to the escalating violence, BRICS leaders meeting in Rio de Janeiro issued a joint statement calling on all parties in the Gaza conflict to engage in “good faith negotiations to achieve an immediate, permanent and unconditional ceasefire.”
The 10-nation bloc also demanded the “full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and all other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.” The statement condemned recent US and Israeli attacks on Iran and urged “just and lasting solutions” to conflicts across the Middle East.
[Photo: An aid truck distributes water to displaced Palestinians in Gaza City, Gaza, where residents carry the supplies in plastic jerrycans amid a worsening water crisis, on July 7, 2025. Israeli attacks have severely damaged the city’s infrastructure, leaving much of the population without access to clean drinking water due to destroyed wells and storage facilities. Photojournalist: Mahmoud İssa/AA]
