Israel Dropped 85K Tons of Bombs on Gaza, Killing Humans, Land Alike

The Israeli occupation continues committing its genocidal crimes in the Gaza Strip for the 397th day, deploying its warplanes to drop bombs over the heads of Palestinian civilians, massacring children, and exacerbating the catastrophic humanitarian situation through its suffocating siege and the mass displacement crisis. 

The Israeli-enforced siege and starvation in north Gaza, particularly in the Jabalia refugee camp and Beit Lahia, have ravaged the area for 33 consecutive days, amid intense artillery shelling and airstrikes and the complete isolation of the district from the rest of the Strip. 

Our correspondent in Gaza said there are “no more words” to describe the disastrous situation in the north, amid the absence of food, water, and medicine.

Our correspondent further noted that a woman and her child were killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting their home in Beit Lahia, near the western roundabout of the city. 

Additionally, the Gaza Civil Defense has been forced to halt its operations for the 15th consecutive day in the north due to constant Israeli deliberate targeting and aggression, leaving thousands of Palestinians without humanitarian and medical care.

Over 100,000 people are currently in the besieged northern Gaza Strip, 60% of whom are children and women, Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal told our reporters on Sunday.

Sources reported that the occupation forces simultaneously shelled, fired rounds from military vehicles, and drone-struck the Jabalia refugee camp, the Siftawi area, the vicinity of the Abu Sharkh roundabout, and west Beit Lahia.

This comes as the Israeli occupation continues to demolish buildings and residential blocks in the Siftawi area, the Jabalia refugee camp, and Beit Lahia town, while massive explosions are heard in Gaza City.

Central Gaza still under ceaseless attacks

In the central Gaza Strip, our correspondent reported that Israeli artillery shelling targeted the northern areas of the Bureij and Nuseirat refugee camps. 

Palestinian sources said that six civilians, including two women and three children, were injured as a result of drone strikes that targeted a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.

In another attack, eight Palestinians, including two women, five children, and a man, were injured as a result of an Israeli airstrike on a house on Block C in the Nuseirat camp.

‘Israel’ dropped 85K tons of bombs on Gaza

For its part, the Palestinian Environment Quality Authority stated that the Israeli forces have dropped more than 85,000 tons of bombs on the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the genocide on October 7, 2023, surpassing the amount dropped during World War II.

The Authority stressed that the occupation forces have used all kinds of weapons and shells in their ongoing aggression, notably white phosphorus, which is prohibited under international law by the United Nations Convention on Conventional Weapons. These weapons target environmental components, causing severe environmental damage that threatens human and animal life.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, on International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict, the Authority added that “the ongoing Israeli shelling of the Gaza Strip has led to the destruction of vast areas of agricultural land and the contamination of soil with toxic chemicals that will hinder farming for decades.”

It also highlighted that the damage to water infrastructure has caused polluted water to leak into groundwater reservoirs, warning of a health and environmental disaster that could threaten hundreds of thousands of residents for generations to come.