(17 Apr 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Beit Lahiya, Gaza Strip – 17 April 2025
1. Various of people sitting near bodies of their relatives who were killed in Israeli airstrike
2. Various of people checking bodies of killed at Indonesian hospital
3. Various of woman mourning their dead relatives
4. Various of people praying for victims
STORYLINE:
People in Gaza were mourning their dead, including children, on Thursday, after Israeli strikes killed 23 people, including a family of 10.
Strikes in northern Gaza killed 13 people, including nine children, according to the Indonesian Hospital which received the bodies.
Eye witness Mohmoud Ghabin, from Jabaliya, told how he heard a loud explosion which set a tent on fire.
"The strike was from a drone on the tent. There was a man, his wife, and his four children inside. Six martyrs. They were martyred," he said.
The strike in the southern city of Khan Younis killed five children, four women and a man from the same family, all of whom suffered severe burns, according to Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies.
Israel ended its ceasefire with Hamas last month and renewed its bombardment, killing hundreds of people and seizing large parts of the territory to pressure the militants to accept changes to the agreement.
The Israeli military says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas because it operates in residential areas.
There was no immediate comment on the latest strikes.
The United Nations meanwhile raised alarm over the mounting impact of Israel’s six-week-old blockade preventing all food and other supplies from entering the territory.
The U.N. humanitarian office, known as OCHA, said that almost all of Gaza’s more than 2 million people now rely for food on the only 1 million prepared meals produced daily by charity kitchens supported by aid groups.
Other food distribution programs have shut down for lack of supplies, and the U.N. and other aid groups have been sending their remaining stocks to the charity kitchens.
The only other way to get food in Gaza is from markets.
But most cannot afford to buy there because of spiraling prices and widespread shortages, meaning humanitarian aid is the primary food source for 80% of the population, the World Food Program said in its monthly report for April on Gaza’s markets.
“The Gaza Strip is now likely facing the worst humanitarian crisis in the 18 months since the escalation of hostilities in October 2023,” OCHA said.
Most people in Gaza are now down to one meal a day, said Shaina Low, a spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council.
Water is also growing scarce, with Palestinians standing in long lines to fill jerry cans from trucks.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that preventing humanitarian aid is one of the “central pressure tactics” used against Hamas, which Israel accuses of siphoning off aid to maintain its rule.
Israel is demanding that Hamas release more hostages at the start of any new ceasefire and ultimately agree to disarm and leave the territory.
Hamas is currently holding 59 hostages, 24 of whom are believed to be alive.
It says it will only return them in exchange for the release of more Palestinian prisoners, a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a lasting truce, as called for in the now-defunct ceasefire agreement reached earlier this year.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251.
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