Hospitals in Gaza said Israeli strikes killed at least 32 Palestinians including several children on Saturday, one of the highest tolls since the October ceasefire, a day after Israel accused Hamas of new truce violations.
The strikes hit locations throughout Gaza, including an apartment building in Gaza City and a tent camp in Khan Younis, said officials at hospitals that received the bodies. The casualties included two women and six children from two different families. Another airstrike hit a police station in Gaza City, killing at least 14 and wounding others, Shifa Hospital director Mohamed Abu Selmiya said.
The strikes came a day before the Rafah crossing along the border with Egypt is set to open in Gaza’s southernmost city.
CONDEMNATIONS
Egypt, one of the ceasefire mediators, in a statement condemned the Israeli strikes in the "strongest terms” and warned that they represent "a direct threat to the political course” of the truce.
Qatar also condemned "repeated Israeli violations" of Gaza ceasefire. Hamas in a statement condemned Saturday's strikes as "a brutal crime."
Nasser Hospital said the strike on the tent camp in Khan Younis caused a fire, killing seven, including a father, his three children and three grandchildren.
Atallah Abu Hadaiyed said he had just finished praying when the explosion struck. "We came running and found my cousins lying here and there, with fire raging. We don’t know if we’re at war or at peace, or what. Where is the truce? Where is the ceasefire they talked about?”he said, as people inspected ruins including a bloodied mattress. Shifa Hospital said the Gaza City apartment building strike killed three children, their aunt and grandmother.
"The three girls are gone, may God have mercy on them. They were asleep, we found them in the street,” said a relative, Samir Al Atbash, adding that the family were civilians with no connection to Hamas. Names were written on body bags lined up at the foot of a wall.
Shifa Hospital said the strike on the police station killed at least 14 including four policewomen, civilians and inmates. The hospital also said a man was killed in a strike on the eastern side of Jabaliya refugee camp.
Hamas called Saturday's strikes "a renewed flagrant violation” and urged the United States and other mediating countries to push Israel to stop them.
"All available indicators suggest that we are dealing with a ‘Board of War,’ not a ‘Board of Peace,’” senior Hamas official Bassem Naim said on X, questioning the legitimacy of the Trump administration-proposed international body meant to govern Gaza.
CEASEFIRE VIOLATIONS
About a dozen first responders rushed to the devastated building and pulled bodies from the rubble, an AFP journalist reported. Another Israeli attack hit a shelter in Al Mawasi, an area of south Gaza where tens of thousands of displaced Gazans live in tents and makeshift shelters, an AFP journalist reported.
Large plumes of smoke rose above the thousands of densely pitched tents. The number of casualties from this strike was still not known.
Although people have been killed almost daily in Gaza since the start of the ceasefire on October 10, Saturday's toll was particularly high.
The health ministry, which operates under the Hamas authority, has said Israeli attacks have killed at least 509 people in Gaza since the ceasefire came into effect.
Agencies