At least 44 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, local rescue officials said, marking a sharp escalation in fighting.
Gaza civil defense official Mohammad al-Mughayyir told AFP that 23 of the dead were killed when a home in the Al-Bureij refugee camp was struck. “44 people have been killed in Israeli raids, including 23 in a strike on a home in Al-Bureij,” he said.
In a separate incident near the American aid centre in the southern Morag area, “two people were killed and several injured by Israeli forces’ gunfire this morning,” al-Mughayyir added. The Israeli military said it was investigating both incidents and that its forces had struck “dozens of terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip” over the past day.
The renewed offensive comes a day after thousands of Palestinians stormed the World Food Programme’s Al-Ghafari warehouse in Deir al-Balah amid crippling shortages.
Footage showed chaotic scenes and gunfire as desperate civilians made off with emergency food supplies. “What is happening to us is degrading.
We risk our lives just to get a bag of flour,” said Sobhi Areef, one resident.
Meanwhile, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), established as an alternative distribution channel to bypass Hamas, has drawn criticism from the UN and EU.
Israel defends the GHF’s role, accusing the UN of obstructing its efforts. Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, has accused the UN of “threats, intimidation, and retaliation against NGOs.”
With one in five Gazans at risk of starvation and the war now in its 18th month, the UN says the death toll since March 18 has reached 3,986 — contributing to over 54,000 total Palestinian fatalities, mostly civilians. Despite diplomatic contacts, including an EU–Jordan call condemning “systematic starvation tactics,” a ceasefire remains elusive.
