Airstrikes across Gaza kill 75, including kids, as Israel ramps up its war
More than 20 people were killed in airstrikes that hit houses and tents sheltering displaced people in southern Gaza, according to Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Younis
Showing no signs of abating, Israel continued with its fierce offensive in Gaza Strip, killing at least 75 people overnight and into Sunday, hospitals and medics in the battered enclave said.
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More than 20 people were killed in airstrikes that hit houses and tents sheltering displaced people in southern Gaza, according to Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Younis.
Strikes pound Gaza
In northern Gaza, parts of which have been flattened by Israel's onslaught, at least 43 people were killed in multiple strikes, according to first responders from the health ministry and the civil defense. Gaza City's Shifa Hospital said among the dead, 15 were children and 12 were women.
In Jabaliya, a built-up refugee camp in northern Gaza, 10 people, including seven children and a woman were killed, according to the civil defense, which operates under the Hamas-run government. Among the dead were two parents and their three children and a father and his four children, it said.
In central Gaza, at least 12 people were killed in three separate strikes, hospitals said. One strike in the Zweida town killed seven people, including two children and four women, according to according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the town of Deir al-Balah. The second hit an apartment in Deir al-Balah, killing two parents and their child, the hospital said. In Nuseirat camp, a strike hit a house and killed two people, said the camp's Awda hospital, Nasser Hospital said it struggled to count the dead because of the condition the bodies were brought in.
Ramping up pressure
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the overnight strikes. The bloodshed comes as Israel ramps up its war in Gaza with a new offensive named “Gideon's Chariots,” in which Israel says it plans to seize territory, displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to Gaza's south and take greater control over the distribution of aid.
Israel had said it would wait until the end of US President Donald Trump's visit to the region before launching its new offensive, saying it was giving a chance for efforts to bring about a new ceasefire deal. And while teams are still negotiating a potential truce in the Qatari capital Doha, there appears to have been no breakthrough. Trump did not visit Israel on his trip, which wrapped up on Friday.
Airstrikes after truce
Israel shattered a previous 8-week ceasefire in mid-March, launching fierce airstrike that killed hundreds. Days before the end of that ceasefire, Israel also halted all imports into Gaza, including food, medicine and fuel, deepening a humanitarian crisis and sparking warnings of an increasing risk of famine in the territory — a blockade that continues.
Also read: Gaza reports 51 deaths from Israeli strikes, toll rises to over 52,000
Israel says that move is also meant to pressure Hamas.
The war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 251 others. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't differentiate between civilians and combatants.
(With agency inputs)