GAZA — At least 27 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025, while 20 others died when a food truck overturned in the Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian sources.
Mahmoud Basal, spokesman for the Civil Defense in Gaza, said the attacks targeted a tent housing displaced persons and gatherings of people waiting for aid in the Gaza Strip.
Basal said that seven people were killed by Israeli army fire while waiting for aid near two United States-backed distribution centers in Rafah and at the Netzarim area in the center.
Issa Mukhaimer, 37, was among the mourners with his family at the Nasser Complex in Khan Younis, where they had gathered to receive the body of a relative killed by Israeli army fire in Rafah while trying to obtain food.
“Everyone who goes to the aid centers returns carrying a bag of flour or being carried on shoulders,” Mukhaimer said tearfully.
The man said in a loud voice, “The people don’t want war. We want to live in freedom and peace and end the tragic situation of displacement and homelessness.”
Nine people, including children, were killed when Israeli aircraft bombed two homes in the Shuja’iyya and Zeitoun neighborhoods east of Gaza City, according to Basal. Three people were killed and five others wounded in an airstrike targeting a convoy of aid workers north of Gaza City.
Basal added that among those killed were two girls. One was a six-month-old baby who was shot by an Israeli drone while she was in her family’s tent on al-Nafaq Street in Gaza City. The other girl was shot in the head inside her tent in the northwest of Khan Younis.
He said that a family of five, including a husband, wife and three children, was killed when Israeli aircraft targeted their home in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. He said a neighbor of the house was also killed by shrapnel from the bombing.
Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director of the Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City, said the pressure on the Gaza Strip’s hospitals is extremely high, warning of the loss of wounded patients due to the hospitals’ inability to accommodate them.
Abu Salmiya said in a press statement that hospital occupancy exceeds 300 percent, adding that anesthetics will run out in the Gaza Strip within 48 hours and the health authorities do not have sufficient stocks of blood units.
Meanwhile, local Palestinian sources said that Israeli naval forces arrested six fishermen in the sea off the central Gaza Strip after surrounding their boat and transferring them to an unknown location.
IDF statement
In a statement Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its troops, directed by intelligence, are continuing operations against “terrorist organizations” in the Gaza Strip.
“IDF troops operating in northern Gaza continue to dismantle terrorist infrastructure above and below ground. During operational activity yesterday (Tuesday), IDF troops rapidly dismantled the launcher that launched mortars towards IDF troops in northern Gaza,” it said.
“In the southern Gaza Strip, IDF troops dismantled terrorist infrastructure, located several significant tunnel shafts, and eliminated several terrorists,” it said.
Since Israel resumed its intensified military campaign on March 18, at least 9,654 Palestinians have been killed and 39,401 injured, bringing the overall death toll in Gaza since the war began in October 2023 to 61,158, with a total of 151,442 people injured, according to health authorities in Gaza on Wednesday.
Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee on Wednesday ordered residents of several areas in the Zeitoun neighborhood, east of Gaza City, to evacuate their homes.
Adraee said in a press statement that the Israeli forces “are continuing to deepen their operations westward.”
Adraee said, “For your safety, evacuate immediately south toward Al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis, south of the Gaza Strip.”
Following the order, dozens of families in those areas were forced to leave their homes, carrying belongings and clothes under the sun amid dire humanitarian conditions, according to local sources and eyewitnesses.
Mohsen Malka, as he and his family were about to leave, said, “The situation has been unbearable for 21 months, and we have been displaced between areas due to Israeli military orders.”
Later Wednesday, Adraee issued a new warning regarding Khan Younis, saying, “To those in the tents in the Al-Nasr neighborhood of Khan Younis, in Block 110 and the eastern part of Block 89, the IDF is continuing its ground maneuver and using heavy force in your area to expand the scope of the fighting.”
In a separate statement, Adraee said that “the area will not be included in the areas witnessing a tactical, temporary and local ceasefire for humanitarian purposes,” calling on residents to evacuate the area westward immediately for their safety. He said the evacuation order does not include the Nasser Medical Complex. / XINHUA