Dozens of Israeli air strikes on Gaza have killed ‘only women and children’ after a ceasefire collapsed, the UN said, as an Israeli attack in the territory’s south on Friday killed a family of 10.
A UN rights office report also warned that expanding Israeli evacuation orders were resulting in the ‘forcible transfer’ of people into ever-shrinking areas, raising ‘real concern as to the future viability of Palestinians as a group in Gaza’.
Israel’s military said it was looking into the attack that killed members of the same family in Khan Yunis, adding separately that it had struck approximately 40 ‘terror targets’ across the territory over the past day.
Israel resumed its Gaza strikes on March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire with Hamas.
Since then, more than 1,500 people have been killed, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory to which Israel cut off aid more than a month ago.
‘Ten people, including seven children, were brought to the hospital as martyrs following an Israeli air strike that targeted the Farra family home in central Khan Yunis,’ civil defence spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
AFP footage of the aftermath showed several bodies wrapped in white shrouds and blankets, and the house mangled concrete slabs and twisted metal.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced Israel, saying: ‘If this is not barbarism, I ask you, what is it?’
The Israeli military issued evacuation warnings to residents in several areas ahead of new offensives.
‘I left everything behind. I only left with my children,’ Umm Tawfiq told AFP as she fled from her home in Gaza City.
The UN decried the impact of the ongoing Israeli strikes, finding that ‘a large percentage of fatalities are children and women’.
‘Between 18 March and 9 April 2025, there were some 224 incidents of Israeli strikes on residential buildings and tents for internally displaced people,’ the UN human rights office said in Geneva.
‘In some 36 strikes about which the UN Human Rights Office corroborated information, the fatalities recorded so far were only women and children.’
Israel’s military has repeatedly said Palestinian militants often hide among civilians, a charge Hamas denies.
UN rights office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani also raised concerns over ‘the denial of access to basic necessities within Gaza and the repeated suggestion that Gazans should leave the territory entirely’.
