Israeli attacks across Gaza have killed at least 82 people in the last 24 hours, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, amid ongoing ceasefire talks and criticism over plans to transfer Palestinians to Rafah forcibly, reports Al Jazeera.
Among those killed on Thursday, 15 people, including nine children and four women, were killed in an Israeli air attack while waiting in line for nutritional supplies for children in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza.
At least 30 others were wounded, including 19 children, during the Israeli attack.
Catherine Russell, the director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), condemned the attack on aid seekers and said the killing of families trying to access aid was "unconscionable".
"This is the cruel reality confronting many in Gaza today after months of insufficient aid being allowed into the territory and parties to the conflict failing to uphold basic responsibilities to protect civilians," the UNICEF official said.
Russell called on Israel to ensure "full compliance with international humanitarian law" and to conduct an investigation into the incident.
Separately, Hamas condemned the attack and said it was part of Israel's "ongoing campaign of genocide in the Strip".
Israel is "escalating its brutal massacres against innocent civilians in schools, streets, displacement camps, and civilian centres, in a systematic behaviour that amounts to a full-fledged ethnic cleansing crime, perpetrated in full view of the world", the Palestinian group said.
Since Israel began its war on Gaza after the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks that killed 1,139 people in Israel, at least 57,762 Palestinians have been killed, and 137,656 others have been wounded, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
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