GAZA, (PIC)
The Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip announced that 130 martyrs and 263 wounded arrived at hospitals in the Gaza Strip over the past 48 hours.
The health department clarified in a statement on Saturday that the total number of casualties since March 18 has reached 634 martyrs and 1,172 injuries.
It noted that the death toll from the Israeli war of extermination on the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, has risen to 49,747 martyrs and 113,213 wounded.
It pointed out that several victims remain under the rubble and in the streets, unreachable by rescue teams.
In a related context, the Palestinian Center for Missing Persons and Enforced Disappearances warned of the risks of registering more cases of enforced disappearance, following the announcement of the Israeli occupation army’s incursion into new areas of the Gaza Strip and the resumption of the war of extermination.
The center expressed its deep concern in a statement on Saturday regarding the increasing number of missing persons in the Gaza Strip amid ongoing Israeli bombardment and the collapse of more residential buildings on top of their inhabitants, with civil defense teams unable to reach potential victims and retrieve them from under the rubble.
The center indicated that the occupation army’s threats to expand ground operations “increase the likelihood of Palestinian civilians being detained in unknown locations without disclosure of their fate, which constitutes a serious violation of international humanitarian law.”
It renewed its call for independent investigations into crimes of enforced disappearance and ongoing violations by the occupation against civilians in the Gaza Strip. It demanded that the Israeli occupation authorities disclose the fate of the missing in its prisons and identify the dead among them or others whose bodies they hold or buried in numbered graves or temporary unmarked graves.
It emphasized the necessity of intensifying international efforts to end this tragedy that burdens thousands of Palestinian families.
The center pointed out that the continued military operations of the occupation army in Gaza severely hinder humanitarian efforts aimed at retrieving the bodies of victims and searching for the missing, as the occupation forces prevent rescue teams from reaching affected sites, exacerbating the suffering of families still waiting to know the fate of their loved ones.
It called on the international community to urgently intervene to pressure Israel to stop targeting civilians, ensure that rescue teams can access bombed areas without obstruction, and disclose the fate of all detainees and those forcibly disappeared.
Since March 18, the Israeli occupation army has continued its renewed aggression against the Gaza Strip after Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu’s overthrow of the ceasefire agreement and his evasion of the second phase of negotiations.
