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Israeli air strikes cause casualties Gaza 27 people Gaza officials said Saturday was one of the deadliest days since the ceasefire.
The Israel Defense Forces claimed it was Targeting Hamas and Islamic Jihad commanders and locations as it struck police stations, homes and tent camps in the troubled strip.
The fragile ceasefire continues to be undermined by violence, with Israeli attacks killing more than 500 people since October. According to Israeli statistics, Palestinian militants killed four Israeli soldiers.
Israeli warplanes struck the Shehradwan station west of Gaza City early Saturday, killing 10 police officers and detainees, Gaza medics and police reported.
Further airstrikes hit at least two homes in Gaza City and a Tent camps for displaced Palestinians further south in Khan Younis, local officials said.
An attack on a Gaza City apartment building killed three children, including their aunt and grandmother, according to Shifa hospital.
Samer al-Atbash, uncle of the young victim, said: “We found my three little nieces in the street. They said ‘ceasefire’ and stuff like that. What did those kids do? What did we do?”
“The three girls are gone, may God have mercy on them,” he said, adding that the family were civilians and had no ties to Hamas. Names were written on the body bags lined up at the foot of the wall.
Video footage from Gaza City showed scorched, blackened walls and extensive damage to an apartment in a multi-story building, with debris strewn across the streets both inside and outside.
The Nasser Hospital said seven people, including a father, his three children and three grandchildren, were killed when a fire started during the attack at the Khan Younis tent camp.
Atala Abu Hadiyad said he had just finished praying when the explosion occurred.
“We ran over and found my cousins lying here and there, and the fire was blazing. We didn’t know if we were at war or at peace or what. Where was the truce? Where was the ceasefire that they called it?” he said.
The Israeli military said it was responding to violations of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire. Hamas says Israel has violated the ceasefire. It did not disclose whether any of its members or facilities had been attacked.
The IDF said that in addition to targeting Hamas commanders, it also attacked weapons caches and manufacturing sites.
The statement said the attack was in response to an incident on Friday when troops spotted eight gunmen emerging from a tunnel in Rafah, where Israeli troops are deployed under a truce.
Three of the gunmen were killed by troops and a fourth, whom the Israeli military said was a Hamas commander in the area, was arrested.
“In response to a ceasefire violation in which eight terrorists were spotted leaving underground terror infrastructure in eastern Rafah, the IDF and the Israel Security Agency attacked four commanders of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror groups and other terrorists across Gaza,” the statement said.
“The IDF also attacked a Hamas weapons storage facility, a weapons manufacturing site and two launch sites in central Gaza.”
The latest attack came a day before the Rafah crossing linking Gaza and Egypt is due to reopen under a U.S.-backed plan to end a war that has devastated much of the territory.
Hamas did not comment on the incident. Dozens of militants have remained trapped in tunnels under Rafah since the ceasefire, although some have been killed in clashes with Israeli forces.
Both sides have accused each other of violating the truce, even as Washington has urged both sides to move forward with the next phase of a ceasefire aimed at permanently ending the conflict.