Hospitals in Gaza said Israel has killed at least 29 Palestinians on Saturday, one of the highest tolls since the October ceasefire aimed at stopping the fighting.
According to media reports, officials at hospitals that received the bodies said the strike hit locations in northern and southern Gaza, including an apartment building in Gaza City and a tent in Khan Younis.
Shifa Hospital said the Gaza City strike killed a mother, three children and one of their relatives on Saturday morning, while Nasser Hospital said a strike in a tent camp caused a fire to break out, killing seven, including a father, his three children and three grandchildren.
An airstrike also hit a police station in Gaza City, killing at least 14 and wounding others, Shifa Hospital director Mohamed Abu Selmiya said.
Israel's military said in a statement that Saturday’s strikes followed what it described as ceasefire violations on Friday, when the army killed at least four militants emerging from a tunnel in an Israeli-controlled area of Rafah.
Hamas called Saturday’s strikes “a renewed flagrant violation” and urged the United States and other mediating countries to push Israel to stop strikes.
Rafah border crossing set to open
The strikes came a day before the Rafah border crossing is set to open in Gaza’s southernmost city, and even as a second phase of the ceasefire agreement inches forward.
The Gaza territory’s border crossings have been closed since the start of the war in October 2023, and Palestinians see the Rafah crossing with Egypt as a lifeline for the tens of thousands in need of treatment outside the territory, where the majority of medical infrastructure has been destroyed.
Since the ceasefire began on 10 October last year, more than 500 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
Israel’s military, which has struck targets on both sides of the ceasefire’s dividing line, said its attacks since October have been responses to violations of the agreement.
