UNICEF: Southern Gaza hit by ‘worst bombardment' of war

The southern Gaza Strip is currently facing its “worst bombardment” since the beginning of Israel’s brutal aggression against the Palestinian territory, says a spokesperson for the UN Children’s Agency (UNICEF).

“I am seeing massive child casualties,” James Elder wrote in an X post on Sunday. “We have a final warning to save children; and our collective conscience.”

In a separate video message from the Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, Elder said he felt like he was “running out of ways” to describe the horrors children face in the Israeli-besieged territory.

“I feel like I’m almost failing in my ability to convey the endless killing of children here,” he added.

Israel resumed its brutal onslaught on Gaza early Friday after declaring an end to a week-long humanitarian truce.

The regime’s military also stepped up its attacks in southern Gaza, which was earlier declared a “safe zone”.

Currently, only half of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are minimally to partially functional. They are all overflowed with dead and wounded people amid an acute lack of fuel and medical supplies.

‘No safe place in Gaza’

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk also warned on Sunday that nowhere is safe in Gaza amid Israel’s fresh raids and evacuation orders.

“As a result of Israel’s conduct of hostilities and its orders for people to leave the north and parts of the south, hundreds of thousands are being confined into ever smaller areas in southern Gaza without proper sanitation, access to sufficient food, water and health supplies, even as bombs rain down around them,” he said. “I repeat, there is no safe place in Gaza.”

The UN rights chief also underlined the need for an end to violence and a long-term political solution between Palestinians and Israelis.

“Silence the guns and return to dialogue – the suffering inflicted on civilians is too much to bear. More violence is not the answer. It will bring neither peace nor security,” he noted.

Türk further said that renewed Israeli bombardments have killed hundreds of Palestinians and largely halted the already limited aid operations within Gaza.

Extremely serious allegations of multiple and grave breaches of international law must be fully investigated and those responsible held to account, he said, calling for international probes in cases where national authorities prove unwilling or unable to carry out inquiries.

Israel waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group conducted Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

Since the start of the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 15,523 Palestinians, mostly women and children, injured 41,316 others, and left vast swathes of Gaza in ruins.

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