Israel launched a wave of air and artillery strikes that killed at least 25 people in Gaza on Wednesday, according to local health officials, after the military said “several terrorists” had “opened fire toward the area” where troops were operating in Khan Younis in the enclave’s south.
No soldiers were injured, according to the Israel Defense Forces, which 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.
The strikes targeted at least two locations in Khan Younis, including a U.N. facility and the Mawasi area where thousands of displaced families still live in tents. They also hit neighborhoods farther north in Gaza City, with one raid killing 13 people in the area of Zeitoun, rescue workers said.
The deaths added to a growing toll of Palestinian casualties since a U.S.-backed ceasefire went into effect on Oct. 10, following two years of war. Before Wednesday’s strikes, the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, said Israeli fire had killed 280 people over the past 40 days.
Most of them were killed in strikes Israel said were in response to attacks by militants in Gaza, while others have been shot or fired on while straying too close to Israeli positions. In total, at least 69,500 people have been killed in Israel’s military campaign, a war that was launched in response to the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, 2023. That assault killed around 1,200 people and saw some 250 others taken back to Gaza as hostages.
Now, Israeli troops have withdrawn to the eastern half of Gaza, where they maintain positions along the so-called yellow line, which divides the territory in two.
As the dead and wounded poured into the hospitals Wednesday night local time, Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for Gaza’s civil defense force, was shown in a video crouching next to the bodies of three children in the courtyard of one of the facilities.
He then lifted the lifeless body of a girl, wearing pigtails, pink sweatpants and a red sweater. “When will the killing of our children end?” he said. “They want to sleep in their mother’s arms but instead they are dead.”
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