In just 82 days, Israel killed 8,800 Palestinian children in besieged Gaza

Israel has killed 8,800 children alongside 6,300 women since its military invasion on blockaded Gaza started on October 7, the Gaza media office has said as Israel kept pounding the besieged territory with air strikes and shelling.

It said on Wednesday that "the number of killed Palestinians who have been brought to the hospitals in the strip since the beginning of the war has reached 21,110."

"During 82 days of the comprehensive genocidal war, the Israeli army committed 1,779 massacres, resulting in 28 ,110 martyrs and missing individuals," it added.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization [WHO] said Gaza's residents were in "grave peril" after more than 11 weeks of Israeli war — triggered by Hamas's deadly October 7 raid on Israel — which left most hospitals in the Palestinian territory out of action and led to "acute hunger".

The Palestinian resistance group Hamas says its October 7 blitz on Israel that surprised its arch-enemy was orchestrated in response to Israeli attacks on Al Aqsa Mosque, illegal settler violence in occupied West Bank and to put Palestine question "back on the table."

In an assault of startling breadth, Hamas gunmen rolled into as many as 22 locations outside Gaza, including towns and other communities as far as 24 kilometres from the Gaza fence.

In some places they are said to have gunned down many soldiers as Israel's military scrambled to muster a response.

And upon return to Gaza, they also took along some 240 hostages, including Israeli military personnel and civilians. Dozens of the captives were later exchanged for Palestinians incarcerating in Israeli dungeons.

Since then, Israel has heavily bombarded Gaza from air, land and sea, killing more than 21,000 Palestinians, mostly children and women, wounding more than 55,000 and displacing nearly two million people in the tiny coastal enclave.

Fighting and hunger

On Wednesday, explosions lit up the sky over the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis — a focus of heavy urban combat since the Israeli army said it had largely gained control over Gaza's north.

The Gaza Health Ministry said a strike hit a house near Al Amal hospital in Khan Younis, killing 22 people. Heavy firefights also raged again around Gaza City in the north.

Gaza's spiralling humanitarian crisis has amplified calls for an end to the hostilities.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on the international community to take "urgent steps to alleviate the grave peril facing the population of Gaza and jeopardising the ability of humanitarian workers to help" the many in need.

In a statement, the WHO said "hungry people again stopped our convoys in the hope of finding food".

"WHO's ability to supply medicines, medical supplies, and fuel to hospitals is being increasingly constrained by the hunger and desperation of people en route to, and within, hospitals we reach."

Gaza's 2.4 million people have suffered severe shortages of water, food, fuel and medicines, with only limited aid entering the territory.

An estimated 1.9 million Gaza's residents have been displaced, the UN says.