UN Report: 36 Israeli strikes on Gaza killed only women and children

On Friday, the United Nations disclosed that a significant portion of the casualties are children and women. Since March 18, when a two-month ceasefire with Hamas was disrupted by Israel, numerous strikes have targeted residential buildings and tents.

The UN rights office spokeswoman, Ravina Shamdasani, reported to journalists in Geneva that between March 18 and April 9, 2025, approximately 224 incidents of Israeli attacks targeted residential structures and tents housing internally displaced individuals.

The UN Human Rights Office has verified that in approximately 36 strikes, the casualties reported have so far exclusively included women and children, according to the spokesperson.

She noted that a significant proportion of the fatalities, as documented by their Office, consists of women and children.

According to the Health Ministry in Gaza, the conflict in Gaza that erupted in October 2023 has resulted in the deaths of at least 50,912 Palestinians, with 115,981 individuals reported as wounded. The Government Media Office has revised its death toll to exceed 61,700, indicating that thousands remain missing beneath the rubble and are feared dead.

The United Nations issued a warning following reports from Gaza rescue teams that a pre-dawn Israeli airstrike on Friday resulted in the deaths of 10 members of the same family.

According to Mahmud Bassal, a spokesperson for the Gaza civil defense agency, ten individuals, among them seven children, were killed in an Israeli air strike that hit the Farra family residence in central Khan Younis.

Images from the scene revealed a severely damaged building, with dislodged concrete slabs and distorted metal scattered throughout the area.

Shamdasani referenced an attack on April 6 targeting a residential building belonging to the Abu Issa family in Deir al Balah, which reportedly resulted in the deaths of one girl, four women, and a four-year-old boy.

She emphasized that the designated areas where Palestinians were advised to relocate under the increasing number of Israeli “evacuation orders” were also facing assaults.

The UN official reported that although the Israeli military had directed civilians to move to the Al Mawasi area of Khan Younis, strikes have persisted on tents sheltering displaced individuals in that location. Since March 18, at least 23 such incidents have been documented by the Office.

Shamdasani has issued a warning regarding the military bombardments across Gaza, stating that these actions are rendering the region devoid of any places of safety.

The United Nations rights office has reported that the widening scope of Israeli evacuation orders is leading to the “forcible transfer” of individuals into increasingly confined areas within the beleaguered Palestinian region.

Shamdasani emphasized that the directives labeled as evacuation orders are, in reality, instructions that result in the displacement of Gaza’s population into increasingly confined spaces.

The involuntary relocation of civilians within occupied regions constitutes forcible transfer, representing a serious violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and is considered a crime against humanity.

A United Nations spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, issued a warning on Friday, highlighting that Israeli evacuation directives have reduced the living space for Palestinians in Gaza to less than one-third of the territory. This statement was based on information from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

According to the OCHA, over two-thirds of the Gaza Strip is currently subject to active displacement orders or classified as restricted zones, significantly limiting the living space for Palestinians to less than one-third of the region. This remaining area is described as being fragmented.