Israel Kills 22 Children in Gaza Bombing as Trump Visits Region

U.S. President Donald Trump's visit to the Middle East this week had sparked hope that a new cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas could be imminent, but the Israel Defense Forces' bombardment of northern and southern Gaza on Wednesday—with targets including a hospital and a refugee camp—was seen as a signal from Israel that it has no intention of reversing its plan to escalate the attacks that have killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.

At least 22 children were among those killed in airstrikes, and Gaza's Health Ministry said more than 70 people in total had been killed since dawn.

At least 50 of those people were victims of strikes near Jabalia in the northern part of the enclave, where rescue workers were using hand tools Wednesday to smash through concrete slabs to recover the bodies of children.

The latest round of attacks come as Israel's total blockade on humanitarian aid into Gaza is in its third month, having pushed nearly half a million Palestinians toward possible starvation according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.

Eyewitnesses said the strikes in Jabalia came without any warning and that one explosion "felt like a huge earthquake" and obliterated numerous residential buildings.

"All the houses are gone, including ours. We made it out from under the rubble and thank God we're alive," one man told Al Jazeera.

Wednesday morning also marked the third Israeli bombing of a hospital in Gaza in three days, with the IDF striking European Hospital in Khan Younis.

CCTV footage showed patients heading to the hospital when the facility was struck. One bombing hit a bulldozer that had been deployed to clear the area of rubble from previous attacks in order to allow ambulances to enter the area.

Dr. Marwan al-Hams, director general of field hospitals at Gaza's Health Ministry, told the Associated Press that the bombings had also damaged the hospital's water and sewage systems and represented Israel's latest attack on Palestinian healthcare workers' ability to provide care to thousands of injured and sick people.

"Until these damages are fixed, we will have to shut down most departments of the hospital," he told the AP.

Israeli media reported that Mohammed Sinwar, brother of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by the IDF last year, was a target of the European Hospital attack. The IDF said a Hamas "command and control center" was located under the facility.

"Surely the images immediately contradict this?" said filmmaker and journalist Richard Sanders. "There's no bunker there."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that there was "no way" a cease-fire would be reached until Israel destroys Hamas.

"There will be no situation where we stop the war," said Netanyahu ahead of Trump's visit to the Middle East.

Israel and the U.S., its top international provider of military aid, have recently discussed setting up a potential U.S.-led government in Gaza after the war and a plan to deliver aid to the enclave via a private foundation and U.S. military contractors—a plan that has been rejected by United Nations aid officials.

In addition to displacing the vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza, Israel's 19-month military campaign has left people in the enclave without the ability to produce their own food, and markets are largely empty, with prices for food that is available skyrocketing.

The United Nations warned this week that charity kitchens, which provided more than 1 million meals per day in late April, now are able to serve just 260,000 per day, and kitchens are rapidly shutting down due to a lack of supplies.

Thousands of children have been diagnosed with acute malnutrition since Israel's latest total blockade began in March.

Clemence Lagourdat, a program coordinator for Oxfam International, toldSky News Wednesday that the blockade combined with the latest bombings have pushed the humanitarian situation in Gaza to "an all-time low since the beginning of the war."

"It's been now more than 70 days that nothing has entered the Gaza strip, not a drop of fuel, of food, no medicine," said Lagourdat. "As humanitarian workers we cannot solve the situation. If there is not a political push for a permanent cease-fire and for the border to open... we are working with scraps, and if the situation doesn't change there is not much more that we will be able to do."