The UN said on Friday that 36 strikes in Gaza have killed only women and children and hundreds have hit residential buildings and tents since Israel resumed intense strikes on the Palestinian enclave on March 18.
The United Nations on Friday decried the impact of ongoing Israeli strikes acrossGazaon civilians, finding that "a large percentage of fatalities are children and women".
TheUNrights office also warned that expanding Israeli evacuation orders were resulting in the "forcible transfer" of people into ever-shrinking spaces in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
Spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani warned the military strikes across Gaza were "leaving nowhere safe".
"Between 18 March and 9 April 2025, there were some 224 incidents of Israeli strikes on residential buildings and tents for internally displaced people," she told reporters in Geneva.
"In some 36 strikes about which the UN Human Rights Office corroborated information, the fatalities recorded so far were only women and children," she said.
"Overall, a large percentage of fatalities are children and women, according to information recorded by our Office," she added.
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Shamdasani cited an April 6 strike on a residential building of the Abu Issa family in Deir al Balah, which reportedly killed one girl, four women, and one four-year-old boy.
She highlighted that even the areas where Palestinians were being instructed to go in the expanding number of Israeli "evacuation orders" were also being subjected to attacks.
"Despite Israeli military orders instructing civilians to relocate to the Al Mawasi area of Khan Younis, strikes continued on tents in that area housing displaced people, with at least 23 such incidents recorded by the Office since 18 March," she said.
Shamdasani referred to a March 31 order by the Israeli military covering all of Rafah, the southernmost governorate in Gaza, followed by a large-scale ground operation.
Israelhas said its troops are seizing "large areas" in Gaza and incorporating them into buffer zones cleared of their inhabitants.
"Large areas are being seized and added to Israel's security zones, leaving Gaza smaller and more isolated," Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday.
"Let us be clear, these so-called evacuation orders are actually displacement orders, leading to displacement of the population of Gaza into ever shrinking spaces," Shamdasani said.
"The permanently displacing the civilian population within occupied territories amounts to forcible transfer, which is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and it is a crime against humanity."
Israel resumed intense strikes on the Gaza Strip on March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire withHamas.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
Originally published on France24
