Israeli tank shelling and air strikes killed 24 Palestinians including seven children in Gaza on Wednesday, health officials said, the latest violence to undermine the nearly four-month-old ceasefire in the enclave.
Among the dead was a medic who rushed to help victims of a strike in the southern city of Khan Younis and was then killed by a second attack on the same location, health officials said.
The attacks come three days after Israel reopened Gaza’s main border crossing with Egypt, a big step envisaged by the US-backed truce deal.
Israel pledged to continue the strikes, saying that it was responding to a militant attack on Israeli soldiers that seriously wounded one.
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Among the Palestinians killed were a five-month-old and a baby just 10 days old, as well as seven women, said hospital officials.
More than 530 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli since the ceasefire came into effect on October 10th last year, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Tents in Mawasi, a coastal area near Khan Younis crowded with Gazans displaced by the conflict, had been ripped apart by the strikes. Nearly all of Gaza’s population of over 2 million were forced to flee their homes during the war.
The Israeli military said it had launched the strikes in response to Palestinian militants opening fire on Israeli troops operating near its armistice line with Hamas. It said an Israeli soldier was severely injured by the militant fire, which it described as a violation of the ceasefire agreement.
A subsequent statement said one of the Israeli strikes had targeted a senior Hamas commander. A commander from Hamas’ smaller ally Islamic Jihad and his 11-year-old daughter were among those killed in strikes on Wednesday, according to relatives.
The Israeli military later confirmed in a statement that it had killed an Islamic Jihad commander.
Hamas said Israel’s actions undermined efforts to stabilise the ceasefire. In a statement, the group called for “immediate international pressure to halt violations.”
The escalating Palestinian death toll has rocked the US-backed truce and caused Palestinians in the strip to say it does not feel like the war has ended.
“The genocidal war against our people in the Gaza Strip continues,” said Dr Mohamed Abu Selmiya, director of Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, in a Facebook post. “Where is the ceasefire? Where are the mediators?”
An Israeli military official told the Associated Press that Israel would continue striking the strip.
Since the ceasefire took hold, Israel’s military has defended deadly strikes by saying it is responding to Hamas violations or militant attacks on its soldiers.
The military says four soldiers have been killed since the ceasefire took hold.
Mediators have condemned the attacks and Hamas has called them violations of the deal.
On Wednesday, Israeli troops fired on a building in the Tuffah neighbourhood in north Gaza, killing at least 11 people, most from the same family, said Shifa Hospital, which received the bodies.
The dead included two parents, their 10-day-old girl, her five-month-old cousin and their grandmother.
Israel’s military said its aircraft and armoured units had returned fire after militants started shooting at troops, badly wounding a reservist soldier who was evacuated to a hospital. Israel called the militant attack a violation of the deal.
After the Tuffah strike, Israeli fire continued across the strip, said hospital officials.
An Israeli strike on a family’s tent in the southern city of Khan Younis killed three people including a 12-year-old boy, said Nasser hospital, which received the bodies.
Tank shelling in Gaza City’s eastern neighbourhood of Zaytoun killed another three Palestinians, according to Shifa Hospital, including a husband and his wife.
A strike on a tent in the Muwasi area of Khan Younis killed at least two people and wounded five others, according to a field hospital run by the Palestinian Red Crescent in the area.
The dead included Hussein Hassan Hussein al-Semieri, a paramedic for the Palestinian Red Crescent who was on duty at the time, said the hospital.
More than 71,800 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, according to the Gaza health ministry, which does not say how many were fighters or civilians.
The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts. – Reuters/AP
