Live blog update| Israel's war on Gaza
This is an entry from: Gaza live: Israel continues bombing central Gaza

Evening recap

21 April 2024 23:26 BST

Good evening, Middle East Eye readers.

It is approaching 01:30 in Gaza and our live coverage of Israel's deadly assault on the besieged enclave will shortly be closing for the evening.

Here are the day's key developments:

Israeli forces have killed at least 48 Palestinians and wounded 79 more over the past 24 hours, according to the Palestinian health ministry. This brought the Palestinian death toll in over six months to more than 34,097, with at least 76,980 wounded and an estimated 7,000 missing and presumed dead. More than 70 percent of the victims are children and women, according to health officials.

Palestinian civil defence teams continued to recover bodies of Palestinians believed to have been buried by Israeli forces in mass graves in the courtyard of Nasser hospital in Khan Younis. The Gaza government media office said that two mass graves had been discovered so far and at least 200 bodies recovered. According to the rescue teams, some bodies had their hands bound behind their backs, suggesting they were executed and buried on the spot.

At least 485 Palestinians have been killed and 4,900 wounded in attacks by Israeli forces and settlers across the occupied West Bank since the war began, according to the health ministry.

Other major events on Sunday included:

  • A Palestinian woman was shot dead by Israeli forces on Sunday at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Earlier on Sunday, Israeli forces had shot dead two Palestinian teenagers in Ramallah. 
     
  • Palestinians took to the streets to condemn Israel's deadly three-day raid on Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, during which at least 14 people were killed by Israeli forces. Israeli forces detained 50 Palestinians, including some who were wounded, during its three-day raid on the camp, the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) said in a statement.
     
  • The funeral of Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) volunteer paramedic Mohammed Awad Musa was held on Sunday. Musa was killed while treating people wounded by a settler's gunfire in the Nablus town of Sa'wiyah, according to the society.
     
  • Israeli air strikes have targeted the southern Lebanon towns of Naqoura, Majdel Zoun and Ayta ash-Shab.
     
  • Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah said on Sunday that it had downed an Israeli drone that was on a combat mission in southern Lebanon.
     
  • Israeli officials have slammed the US after it was reported that the Biden administration was slated to announce sanctions against an Israeli army battalion accused of human rights abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the move the "height of absurdity and a moral low" while war cabinet minister Benny Gantz said it was "a dangerous precedent". 
     
  • Conservative peer and British Secretary of State for the Commonwealth Tariq Ahmad said he was "appalled" by the Israeli strike on a residential apartment in Rafah, in southern Gaza, in which at least 19 people died, including 14 children. "We must stop this fighting immediately and bring an end to this conflict," he said in a post on X.
     
  • British aid group Medical Aid for Palestinians has reported that its teams were able to deliver food aid to internally displaced people (IDP) in northern Gaza for the first time since the war began.