Israeli occupation forces unleashed a fresh wave of heavy bombardment across the Gaza Strip on Friday, with tank shelling, artillery barrages, naval gunfire, and drone strikes pounding multiple locations, according to Palestinian media reports.
Military correspondents and local witnesses confirmed that Israeli tanks shelled positions north of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, while artillery units targeted the northeastern fringes of Gaza City. Concurrently, Israeli naval vessels opened fire along the Gaza City coastline. The latest escalation follows a series of strikes on Thursday, during which Israeli troops fired inside the Halawa displacement camp in Jabalia, wounding two Palestinians, and a child was injured by fire from an Israeli quadcopter drone near al-Mahatta Mosque in the al-Tuffah neighborhood, northeast of Gaza City. Artillery also struck the Jabalia refugee camp on Thursday.
In a separate incident, a Palestinian man in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, succumbed to wounds sustained in an earlier Israeli attack on the al-Buraq area, west of the city, raising the death toll from the past 48 hours.
Over 4,000 Violations Documented in 300 Days
In a comprehensive tally released Thursday, Gaza’s Government Media Office reported that Israel has committed more than 4,091 ceasefire violations over the 300 days since the truce was announced. The office stated that these infractions have resulted in at least 1,254 Palestinian deaths, 4,121 injuries, and the arrest of 159 individuals. The media office further accused Israeli authorities of systematically obstructing food and humanitarian aid deliveries throughout the entire period, while imposing severe restrictions on Palestinian movement in and out of the territory.
UNICEF: 300 Children Slain
The United Nations Children’s Fund issued a stark condemnation on Thursday, revealing that at least 300 children have been killed in Gaza during the 300 days following the October ceasefire declaration. UNICEF warned that continued military operations and catastrophic humanitarian conditions are exposing children to extreme, daily peril.
“A ceasefire that leaves an average of one child dead each and every day is failing children,” said Edouard Beigbeder, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa. “With hundreds more children injured, many severely, children in Gaza are still waiting for the end to the violence they were promised.”
The agency noted that displaced families have been squeezed into roughly one-third of the Strip, where they are surviving amid unsafe shelters, destroyed buildings, mountains of rubble, and mounting waste. Children, UNICEF added, are bearing the brunt of a rapidly deteriorating crisis defined by acute malnutrition, recurrent disease outbreaks, critically limited access to clean water, and damaged sewage and sanitation networks.
Source: Agencies (edited by Al-Manar)