Israeli air strikes targeted Gaza Wednesday ahead of ceasefire talks that the United States hopes will stop Iran striking Israel in retaliation for the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
The escalation has raised fears of a wider conflict after more than 10 months of war in Gaza, which has claimed 39,965 lives, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory. More than 92,294 others have been injured since the beginning of the Israeli occupation's relentless genocide on the Gaza Strip.
Mohammed Abu al-Qumsan had just picked up birth certificates for his newly-born twins when he found out they had been killed, along with his wife and her mother, by an Israeli strike on the Gaza apartment where they were sheltering.
He waved the laminated documents, as a man held him while he wept at the morgue where their bodies were brought.
The Israeli occupation army committed further massacres, Wednesday against Palestinian families in the Gaza Strip, which led to dozens of casualties.
Local medical sources in Gaza reported that 12 Palestinians were martyred and over 30 others were injured, following an Israeli raid on homes in Al-Sheikh Nasser neighbourhood of Khan Younis.
Palestinian civil defense confirmed that five Palestinians, among them three kids were martyred, and others were wounded in another Israeli airstrike that targeted a group of Palestinians in Al-Batan Al-Samin area, south of Khan Younis city.
Additionally, four Palestinians were martyred in Gaza City, following an Israeli shelling of a home near Al-Zaytun neighbourhood.
Civil defense announced that two of its personnel were killed by the Israeli occupation soldiers in Rafah, south of the Gaza enclave, confirming that the death toll among its personnel has surged to 82 during this war.
Thousands of the victims remain under the rubble and scattered on the streets, as the IOF has been preventing ambulance and civil defense crews from reaching them, the sources added.
![Palestinians react as they wait to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis in the northern Gaza Strip Wednesday. Palestinians react as they wait to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis in the northern Gaza Strip Wednesday.](https://cdn4.premiumread.com/?url=https://gulf-times.com/gulftimes/uploads/images/2024/08/14/211030.jpg&w=800&q=100&f=webp)
Palestinians react as they wait to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis in the northern Gaza Strip Wednesday.
![Palestinians react as they wait to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis in the northern Gaza Strip Wednesday. Palestinians react as they wait to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis in the northern Gaza Strip Wednesday.](https://cdn4.premiumread.com/?url=https://gulf-times.com/gulftimes/uploads/images/2024/08/14/211029.jpg&w=800&q=100&f=webp)
Palestinians react as they wait to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis in the northern Gaza Strip Wednesday.
![Palestinians, mostly children, hold out their plates to receive their share of vegetable patties prepared by volunteers in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip Wednesday. Palestinians, mostly children, hold out their plates to receive their share of vegetable patties prepared by volunteers in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip Wednesday.](https://cdn4.premiumread.com/?url=https://gulf-times.com/gulftimes/uploads/images/2024/08/14/211031.jpg&w=800&q=100&f=webp)
Palestinians, mostly children, hold out their plates to receive their share of vegetable patties prepared by volunteers in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip Wednesday.
![A boy walks through a puddle of sewage water past mounds of trash and rubble along a street in the Jabalia camp for Palestinian refugees in the northern Gaza Strip Wednesday. A boy walks through a puddle of sewage water past mounds of trash and rubble along a street in the Jabalia camp for Palestinian refugees in the northern Gaza Strip Wednesday.](https://cdn4.premiumread.com/?url=https://gulf-times.com/gulftimes/uploads/images/2024/08/14/211032.jpg&w=800&q=100&f=webp)
A boy walks through a puddle of sewage water past mounds of trash and rubble along a street in the Jabalia camp for Palestinian refugees in the northern Gaza Strip Wednesday.