DEIR AL-BALAH: Israeli strikes pounded Gaza on Wednesday, killing at least 24 Palestinians, including two babies, according to health officials in the territory, where a fragile ceasefire is under increasing strain. Israel said it killed three militant leaders and others who posed a threat to its forces, and that some strikes came in response to a Hamas attack that seriously wounded one of its soldiers.
Deadly Israeli strikes have repeatedly disrupted the truce since it took effect on Oct. 10. The escalating Palestinian toll has prompted many in Gaza to say it feels like the war is continuing unabated.
Among the Palestinians killed Wednesday were at least five children, seven women and an on-duty paramedic, according to hospital officials.
“Where is the ceasefire? Where are the mediators?” said Dr. Mohamed Abu Selmiya, director of Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, in a Facebook post.
The ceasefire attempted to halt the more than 2-year-old war, which began with Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. While the heaviest fighting has subsided, it has been marred by repeated flare-ups of violence.
A total of 886 Palestinians, half of whom were women and children, have been killed by Israel since the ceasefire went into effect, according to Gaza health officials. Israel’s military says four of its soldiers have been killed since the ceasefire began.
Israel has said its strikes are responses to Hamas ceasefire violations or militant attacks on its soldiers. Eight Arab and Muslim countries, including mediators Egypt and Qatar, recently condemned what they called Israel’s “repeated violations” of the deal.
An Israeli military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in line with military policy, told The Associated Press that Israel’s latest attacks were in response to militant gunfire that badly wounded a reservist soldier Wednesday morning.
Israeli troops fired on a building in the Tuffah neighborhood 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 daughter Wateen Khabhaz, her 5-month-old cousin, Mira Khabhaz, and the children’s grandmother.
The Israeli military said the attack was a real-time response to the gunfire that targeted its soldiers.
Mourners gathered in the courtyard of Shifa Hospital Wednesday morning for funeral prayers.
“What did this child do? … Why are they killing the children?” asked a relative of the family, Mohammad Jaser.
Two young children were seen kneeling at the body of their father as a woman told them to bid him farewell. A young girl kissed the dead man’s cheeks. A strike on a tent in the Muwasi area of Khan Younis killed at least three people and wounded 10 others, according to a field hospital run by the Palestinian Red Crescent in the area. The dead included a paramedic who was on duty at the time, said the hospital.
The Israeli military said the strike had targeted and killed a Hamas platoon commander, Bilal Abu Assi, who led a deadly attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz during the 2023 assault that started the war. It said it had used surveillance, precision weapons and other means to avoid hitting bystanders and “regrets any harm caused to uninvolved civilians.”
A separate strike in Khan Younis killed three people, Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies, said a 12-year-old boy was among the dead, and that all were killed by a strike on a family’s tent. An Israeli military official said the strike targeted three individuals who approached Israeli-controlled territory, posing an immediate danger to troops.
Another strike hit the Al-Shati Refugee camp in Gaza City, killing one person and wounding another, according to health officials at Shifa hospital. The Israeli military said it had killed the leader of a Hamas cell responsible for killing a soldier abducted from the Nahal Oz observatory post during the October 2023 assault. It said the militant was targeted in response to the overnight shooting by Hamas.
