File Photo: Palestinians transport the bodies people killed when an Israeli strike hit a building in Gaza City. AFP
The UN human rights office also warned that expanding Israeli evacuation orders were leading to the “forcible transfer” of people into ever-shrinking areas of the Palestinian territory, where the war began 18 months ago.
The strike hit the Farra family home in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.
“Ten people, including seven children, were brought to the hospital as martyrs following an Israeli air strike that targeted the Farra family home in central Khan Yunis,” said Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defence agency.
Footage from the aftermath, published by AFP, showed medics and rescuers transporting the dead and wounded to hospital in several ambulances. Some bodies were wrapped in white shrouds and blankets.
Images of the scene showed the house reduced to rubble, with mangled concrete slabs and twisted metal strewn across the site.
Witnesses reported continuous and intense Israeli tank fire in Khan Younis.
The civil defence agency said two more people were killed in a separate Israeli strike in the al-Atatra area of Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza.
Israel resumed its war on Gaza on 18 March, ending a two-month ceasefire with Hamas. Since then, Israeli forces have killed more than 1,500 people, according to the health ministry in Gaza, to which Israel cut off aid over a month ago.
‘Women and children’
Early on Friday, the Israeli military issued an “urgent and serious” evacuation order to residents in several areas east of Gaza City.
In a separate statement, the military said its forces had “deepened ground activity in the Morag Corridor” overnight – referring to a new buffer zone between Rafah and Khan Younis in the south.
The UN condemned the continuing Israeli strikes across Gaza, noting that “a large percentage of fatalities are children and women”.
“Between 18 March and 9 April 2025, there were some 224 incidents of Israeli strikes on residential buildings and tents for internally displaced people,” the UN human rights office said in Geneva.
It added: “In some 36 strikes about which the UN Human Rights Office corroborated information, the fatalities recorded so far were only women and children.”
The Israeli military has repeatedly targeted civilian infrastructure, including media workers, medical personnel, and aid workers, as well as schools, hospitals and shelters for those displaced by the war.
According to Gaza’s health ministry, Israel’s war on the strip has killed at least 50,886 people and wounded another 115,875 – the majority women and children.
The ministry said that at least 1,522 Palestinians have been killed since Israel resumed its war on 18 March.
*This story was edited by Ahram Online.
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