April 2024: Israel's Aggression Against Occupied Palestine

The beginning of April marked the 178th. day of Israel's genocidal aggression against the Gaza Strip, as the occupation continued to prepare for an invasion of Rafah, where nearly a million and a half people have been sheltering. On the evening of the first day of April, subsequent to the withdrawal of the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) from Al-Shifa Medical Complex and its vicinity, which resulted in the complex's devastation and the loss of hundreds of Palestinian lives, Israeli warplanes targeted members of the World Central Kitchen (WCK) in the Deir Al-Balah area in the central Gaza Strip, killing seven of them, including six foreigners and one Palestinian citizen. In response, WCK called for an independent, third-party investigation and temporarily suspended operations (which resumed on 28 April). And amid international condemnation of what was described as a "tragic incident," the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Jamie McGoldrick, explained that: "This is not an isolated incident. As of 20 March, at least 196 humanitarians had been killed in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since October 2023. This is nearly three times the death toll recorded in any single conflict in a year."  He added: "Since October 2023, the oPt has become one of the world's most dangerous and difficult places to work. There is no safe place left in Gaza."

In the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, the IOF and their armed settlers continued their aggression against various Palestinian governorates. In Nour Shams refugee camp, east of Tulkarm, after imposing a siege that lasted for more than 50 hours, the IOF perpetrated a massacre, resulting in the killing of 14 Palestinians. The IOF began implementing a large-scale military operation considered to be the most severe and violent of its kind since the so-called "Operation Defensive Shield" in April 2002, after imposing a tight military siege on Nour Shams refugee camp amid illegal acts of sabotage and deliberate destruction of the infrastructure and citizens' homes and properties. 

After 39 years in occupation prisons, Palestinian prisoner Walid Daqqa (62) was martyred inside "Assaf Harofeh" hospital due to Israel's policy of medical crimes and slow killing of ill Palestinian prisoners.