 "3 strikes in 6 weeks: Is Israel-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza falling apart?")
The death toll in Israel’s latest wave of strikes across Gaza on Wednesday rose to 32 on Thursday. Confirming the death toll, local health officials included 12 children and eight women. The strikes came hours after Israeli military said “several terrorists” had “opened fire toward the area” where the troops were stationed in Khan Younis, in the enclave’s south.
According to the statement by the Israeli Defence Forces, no soldiers were injured, but they still described the incident as a violation of the ceasefire agreement Israel struck with Hamas. “In response, the IDF began striking Hamas terrorist targets across the Gaza Strip,” the military said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Hamas denied that its fighters opened fire on Israeli troops, describing the recent deaths of the Gazans as a “horrific massacre”. The Palestinian militant group called on the United States to force Israel to “respect the ceasefire.”
3 strikes in 6 weeks
The strikes targeted at least two locations in Khan Younis, including a United Nations facility and the Mawasi area, where thousands of displaced families still live in tents. Some strikes also hit neighbourhoods farther north in Gaza City, with one raid killing 13 people, including three women and six children, in the area of Zeitoun, rescue workers said.
The Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, noted that the Israeli fire had killed 312 people over the past 40 days. Most of them were killed in strikes Israel claimed were in response to the attacks by militants in Gaza. In total, at least 69,500 people have been killed in Israel’s military campaign, which was triggered after Hamas’s October 7 attack in southern Gaza in 2023.
In accordance with Trump’s 20-point peace plan, the Israeli troops withdrew from the eastern half of Gaza, where they maintain positions along the “yellow line,” which divides the territory into two. It is pertinent to note that the Wednesday violence marked the third time in six weeks since the US-brokered truce came into effect that Israel launched heavy airstrikes across Gaza.
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View AllIn the last three weeks, the strikes killed at least 46 children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.“This cruel war keeps hitting us without mercy. Grief follows us with every Israeli attack, every violation,” Nawraz Abu Libdeh, who works for Medical Aid for Palestinians, told The Washington Post. This begs the question of whether the Gaza ceasefire is fading away.
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