Gaza’s darkest dawn: Hundreds—mostly children—massacred as Israel unleashes horror

By Maryam Qarehgozlou

The Israeli apartheid regime shattered the fragile two-month truce in Gaza with relentless bombardment early on Tuesday, claiming the lives of over 400 Palestinians, most of them children, including toddlers.

The new wave of brutal aggression, which came without warning, resulted in one of the highest single-day death tolls since the onset of the genocidal war on October 7, 2023.

According to Dr. Zaher Al-Wahidi, Director of the Information Unit at the Ministry of Health in Gaza, the indiscriminate strikes claimed the lives of at least 174 children, 89 women, 32 elderly individuals, and 109 men.

Following Tuesday’s devastating Israeli attacks on the besieged Palestinian territory, entire families have been wiped out, leaving local authorities in urgent need of blood donations to support the survivors at under-resourced, overwhelmed hospitals.

The ministry anticipates the death toll to rise as many victims remain under the rubble.

The horrific attacks have left the besieged territory reeling, as Palestinians—already enduring the challenges of the month of Ramadan amid aid blockade—now face a catastrophic loss of life and the collapse of the ceasefire agreement that Israel had routinely violated over the past weeks.

The Israeli regime was forced to agree to a ceasefire deal with Palestinian resistance movement Hamas on January 15, following 15 months of the devastating war, having failed to achieve its objectives of eliminating Hamas or securing the release of captives.

Six weeks later, as the first phase of the agreement ended, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu abruptly terminated the deal and refused further negotiations to enter the second phase and brazenly violated previously agreed-upon terms.

To pressure Hamas into accepting revised terms of the deal—allowing for the release of more Israeli captives without withdrawing occupation forces from the Gaza Strip—the Zionist regime announced an immediate halt to all humanitarian aid for Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, provoking international condemnation.

After enforcing a total aid blockade for more than two weeks, the apartheid regime also issued new forced displacement orders for Palestinians residing in several Gaza areas.

With the collapse of the fragile ceasefire, Gaza is again engulfed in relentless bombardment and displacement, as traumatized residents grapple with escalating airstrikes and mounting grief.

The worst affected are children, as evidenced by the vast majority of children killed in Tuesday's aggression, contrary to the claims of the occupation and its media that the attacks targeted Hamas.

Social media platforms are flooded with posts sharing photos and videos of children and their grieving families who suffered the loss of loved ones during the holy month of Ramadan after weeks of starvation.

Horrifying footage surfaced online showing civilians engaged in desperate searches for their missing loved ones in morgues and beneath the rubble of destroyed homes. Most of them happened to be children.

For hours, they combed through the wreckage in search of the remains of family members who had been mercilessly killed in the Israeli bombings greenlit by the United States and other Western allies.

Ramy Abdu, chairman of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, suffered a personal tragedy when his sister, Nesreen, and her entire family perished in the bombing of their home in Gaza City.

The strike, which targeted the densely populated northern part of the besieged territory, claimed the lives of Nesreen’s children, Ubaida, Omar, and Layan, along with Ubaida’s wife, Malak, and their young children, Siwar and Mohammed.

Abdu shared the pictures of his nephews and nieces on X, formerly Twitter, grieving their loss even as the Israeli aggression continued in different parts of the coastal territory.

“Israel may kill us at will, burn us alive, and tear us apart, but it will never succeed in uprooting us from our land,” Abdu wrote on his X account, calling for accountability.

Ahmad, the teacher of Layan and Omar, paid tribute to the deceased siblings by sharing their photos and expressing sorrow over their tragic and untimely demise.

“Two of my students have been killed by the recent Israeli strikes in Gaza city. Layan and Omar, they were killed along with their parents and siblings," he wrote.

"They were always smiling and share happiness everywhere they go. Why?”

Abubaker Abed, a Press TV journalist from Deir al-Balah, reported on the complete elimination of the Garghoon family in Rafah, southern Gaza.

“Israel has killed this father, the two girls, their mom along their grandparents and uncles and aunts, wiping out the entire family of 17 members,” he wrote, sharing the heartbreaking photo of the father and his two daughters.

Heartfelt words of a Palestinian mother as she mourned the devastating loss of her family in an Israeli airstrike on Tuesday were also widely circulated.

The attack targeted their tent in the Mawasi Khan Yunis area of southern Gaza Strip, claiming the lives of her husband and children.

Through her tears, she recounted the heart-wrenching moment when she discovered her loved ones had been killed.

“I was sleeping and woke up to find my children and husband killed,” she said, sobbing inconsolably.

“My children died hungry, I swear to God they did not find food for suhoor, my daughter died fasting without suhoor,” she said, referring to the meal eaten before dawn during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

To Netanyahu, she said, “I am a mother with a burning heart, may God burn your heart over your children.”

Dr. Majda Abu Aker, an obstetrics-gynecology specialist at a United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) clinic in Rafah, was also among the victims of a tragic Israeli air strike on her home in the al-Jenaina neighborhood.

Her family, including her children, also died in the attack.

The devastating attack claimed the lives of Dr. Abu Aker and more than a dozen others, including at least 10 members of the same family – women and their children, with the youngest victim being a three-day-old infant girl.

In Khan Younis, another family was left devastated when their two young children were killed by Israeli bombs.

The children’s aunt, Heba al-Hindi, took to Facebook to share the heartbreaking news, highlighting the immense toll the genocidal war has taken on the lives of civilians.

“Ayman and Bisan are martyrs, with God. Dear God grant us the strength, God grant you strength my sister, Soad, may he give you strength and patience,” she wrote, mourning Bisan and her brother Ayman.

Gaza’s Health Ministry reports over 48,577 Palestinians have been killed and 112,041 wounded since the start of the genocidal Israeli war in October 2023.

Gaza’s Government Media Office updated its death toll to surpass 61,700, accounting for thousands who are still missing, trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings.

Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, expressed her deep concern over the devastating situation in Gaza, stating that the recent surge in violence and the horrifying images of slain children demand immediate action from the international community.

“As the world wakes up to the harrowing images of children slain by Israeli bombs across the entire Gaza Strip AGAIN, we cannot bear witness to global leaders JUST. DOING. NOTHING,” she wrote in post on X on Tuesday.

“This is an acceleration of the genocide that Israel is committing against the Palestinian people as a whole. We already failed to prevent it and our Governments have an even greater obligation to stop it now.”

Assal Rad, a US-based scholar in West Asian history, slammed the misleading narratives amplified by news outlets, obscuring the severity of the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza and the massacre of the children.

“My timeline is flooded—again—with horrific images of Palestinian children being slaughtered by Israel, all while the media gaslights us with “Israel targets Hamas amid fragile ceasefire” headlines,” she wrote on X on Tuesday.

“No food, no water, no evacuations, just a massacre across Gaza. This is genocide,” she warned.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.ir