Source: Mondoweiss.net
Israel and Iran escalated threats of war as the U.S. central command chief visited the region on Thursday. Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes intensify in the central Gaza Strip.
Casualties
- 33,545 + killed* and at least 76,049 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
- 456+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.**
- Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,139.
- 604 Israeli soldiers have been killed since October 7, and at least 6,800 injured.***
*Gaza’s Ministry of Health confirmed this figure on its Telegram channel on April 9, 2024. Some rights groups estimate the death toll to be much higher when accounting for those presumed dead.
** The death toll in the West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. According to the PA’s Ministry of Health on April 5, this is the latest figure.
*** This figure is released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” The number of Israeli soldiers wounded is according to Israeli media reports.
Key Developments
- Israel kills 63 Palestinians, wounds 45 in the past 24 hours across Gaza, raising the death toll since October 7 to 33,482 and the number of wounded to 76,049, according to the Gaza health ministry.
- Israel kills six members of Hamas chief’s family, including three sons and three grandchildren in al-Shati’ refugee camp in northern Gaza.
- Israeli army launches dozens of strikes on al-Nuseirat refugee camp and its surroundings.
- Israeli army targets fishing dock in Gaza City.
- Israel and Iran conduct air maneuvers.
- Axios quoting Israeli officials: Israel is preparing for an Iranian attack, coordinating with the U.S.
- Israel’s Channel 12: Netanyahu didn’t keep his promise to Biden to open Asdod port for humanitarian aid.
- Israeli security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir asks war minister Yoav Gallant not to allow the release of body of Walid Daqqah.
- Israeli police to open investigation against Palestinian professor at Tel Aviv University for “terror incitement” after mourning the death of Walid Daqqah on social media.
- West Bank: Israeli settlers attack Palestinian villages, torch cars.
- West Bank: Israeli forces raid Qalandia refugee camp north of Jerusalem, villages in Bethlehem and Hebron.
Israel kills 63 Palestinians, wounds 45 across Gaza
The Gaza-based Palestinian health ministry announced that 122 Palestinians were killed by Israeli airstrikes, their bodies arriving at the Gaza Strip’s remaining hospitals alongside 56 other wounded people over the past 24 hours.
Meanwhile, in Gaza City, Israeli forces killed six family members of chief of Hamas’s politburo, Ismail Haniyeh, in an airstrike on a car they were driving in at al-Shati refugee camp. The victims include three of Haniyeh’s sons and three of his grandchildren, aged 5, 8, and 10 years old. Israel also bombed a family house on al-Nafaq Street in Gaza City, wounding several people.
In the central Gaza Strip, Israeli forces launched a series of airstrikes on the surroundings of the Nuseirat refugee camp, and then on the northern and western parts of Nusseirat. Israeli ground forces raided the camp through the village of Mighraqa and the town of al-Zahra, where they destroyed several residential towers.
Palestinian sources reported testimonies that shrapnel from the demolition landed inside an UNRWA school used as shelter by displaced Palestinian families, causing panic.
In the southern Gaza Strip. Palestinian medical teams continued to recover dead bodies from across Khan Younis, three days after Israeli forces withdrew from the city. Meanwhile, Israeli warplanes bombed farming land near Rafah.
Iran and Israel escalate threats, conduct maneuvers
The Israeli public broadcasting channel said on Wednesday that the Israeli air force conducted long-range air drills in conjunction with the Air Force of Cyprus.
The public broadcaster also said that the drills come in preparation for a potential Iranian attack as a response to Israel’s bombing of Iran’s consulate in Damascus in early April, which killed seven Iranian officials.
Simultaneously, the Iranian news agency Mahr reported on X that Tehran’s airspace was closed for airplanes due to military drills on Wednesday. The agency later deleted the tweet.
On Tuesday, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei repeated vows to avenge the bombing of the country’s consulate, stressing that Israel “will be punished.”
Meanwhile, ِAxios quoted officials in the U.S. defense department saying that Israel’s military was coordinating with the U.S. to respond to Iran’s threats.
The website reported that the U.S. central command chief will visit the region on Thursday and might visit Israel to coordinate a response to a potential Iranian attack….