Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 20 people in Gaza, Palestinian health authorities said, as Hamas and Israel traded renewed accusations of violating the enclave’s fragile ceasefire.
Saturday was one of the deadliest days since the US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect last month, two years after Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
Witnesses and medics said the first attack hit a car in the densely populated Rimal neighborhood of western Gaza City, setting it ablaze.
Dozens of people rushed to extinguish the fire and rescue the victims.
Shortly after the attack on the car, the Israeli air force carried out two separate airstrikes on two houses in the city of Deir al-Balah and the Nuseirat camp, in the central Gaza Strip, killing at least 10 people and wounding several others, medics said.
A separate Israeli airstrike on a house in western Gaza City killed at least five Palestinians and injured others, doctors said, bringing the death toll to at least 20 on Saturday.
The ceasefire in the two-year war in Gaza has eased the conflict, allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to return to the ruins of Gaza.
Israel has withdrawn troops from urban positions and aid flows have increased.
But the health authorities in Gaza say so Israeli attacks More than 310 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire came into effect on October 10.
Hamas and Israel accuse each other of violations
Hamas said the “escalation” of Israeli violations was an attempt to “undermine the ceasefire.”
“We call on the mediators to intervene urgently and apply pressure to immediately stop these violations,” the report said in a statement.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry, based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, also condemned the attacks.
It called on the international community to put “immediate pressure” on Israel to “stop the massacres.”
One of the attacks took place on a family home in Gaza City. Source: Getty / Anadolu
The Israeli military said the attacks were in response to a gunman who crossed the so-called Yellow Line in the Gaza Strip, behind which Israeli forces have retreated, and shot at Israeli soldiers.
The army said the gunman had exploited “the humanitarian route in the area through which humanitarian aid enters southern Gaza,” calling it a “blatant violation of the ceasefire.”
A Hamas official in Gaza dismissed the Israeli army’s accusations as baseless and an “excuse to kill,” and said the group would adhere to the ceasefire.
Israel and Hamas have repeatedly accused each other of violating the ceasefire since it came into effect.
The war in Gaza began after Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and captured 251 hostages in an attack on southern Israel on October 7.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 69,700 Palestinians, Gaza health officials say.
Under the terms of the ceasefire, Hamas released all twenty surviving hostages held in Gaza in exchange for nearly two thousand Palestinian prisoners and prisoners held by Israel.
Hamas also agreed to hand over the remains of 28 dead hostages in exchange for the bodies of 360 Palestinian militants killed in the war.
The remains of 25 hostages have been transferred so far.
Israel has called on mediators to “insist that Hamas fulfill its side of the ceasefire” by returning the remaining three deceased hostages and completing disarmament, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said.
Israel has returned 330 bodies of Palestinians, according to the Israeli Health Ministry.
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