Israeli strikes kill 33 in Gaza, deadliest since ceasefire

A pair of Is­raeli strikes in Gaza’s south­ern city of Khan You­nis ear­ly Thurs­day killed five peo­ple, ac­cord­ing to hos­pi­tal of­fi­cials, bring­ing the death toll from airstrikes in the Pales­tin­ian ter­ri­to­ry over a rough­ly 12-hour pe­ri­od to 33. The strikes have been some of the dead­liest since Oct. 10 when a U.S.-bro­kered cease­fire came in­to force.

The re­newed es­ca­la­tion came af­ter Is­rael said its sol­diers had come un­der fire in Khan You­nis on Wednes­day. Is­rael said no sol­diers were killed and re­spond­ed with strikes.

Of­fi­cials at Nass­er hos­pi­tal in Khan You­nis said they re­ceived the bod­ies of 17 peo­ple, in­clud­ing five women and five chil­dren fol­low­ing four Is­raeli airstrikes tar­get­ing tents shel­ter­ing dis­placed peo­ple.

In Gaza City, two airstrikes on a build­ing killed 16 peo­ple, in­clud­ing sev­en chil­dren and three women, ac­cord­ing to of­fi­cials at the Al-Shi­fa hos­pi­tal in the north­ern part of the city where the bod­ies were tak­en.

Hamas con­demned the Is­raeli strikes as a “shock­ing mas­sacre.” In a state­ment, the group de­nied fir­ing to­ward Is­raeli troops.

Cease­fire again un­der pres­sure

Hos­pi­tal of­fi­cials said the bod­ies came from both sides of a line es­tab­lished in last month’s cease­fire. The bound­ary splits Gaza in two, leav­ing the bor­der zone un­der Is­raeli mil­i­tary con­trol while the area be­yond it is meant to serve as a safe zone.

Is­raeli strikes have de­creased since the cease­fire agree­ment took ef­fect, ac­cord­ing to Gaza’s Health Min­istry, though they have not stopped en­tire­ly.

The min­istry, which does not dis­tin­guish be­tween civil­ians and com­bat­ants, re­port­ed more than 300 deaths since the truce be­gan, an av­er­age of more than sev­en per day. Each side has ac­cused the oth­er of vi­o­lat­ing its terms, which in­clude in­creas­ing the flow of aid in­to Gaza and re­turn­ing hostages — dead or alive — to Is­rael.

The deaths are among the more than 69,000 Pales­tini­ans killed since Is­rael launched its sweep­ing of­fen­sive more than two years ago in re­sponse to Hamas-led mil­i­tants ab­duct­ing 251 peo­ple and killing around 1,200 peo­ple, most­ly civil­ians, in the Oct. 7, 2023, at­tack that trig­gered the war. Gaza’s Health Min­istry, part of the Hamas-run gov­ern­ment and staffed by med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, main­tains de­tailed records seen as a re­li­able es­ti­mate by the U.N. and many in­de­pen­dent ex­perts.

Is­rael tar­gets Hezbol­lah in Lebanon

The Gaza strikes co­in­cid­ed with a bar­rage of Is­raeli airstrikes in south­ern Lebanon on Wednes­day on what the Is­raeli mil­i­tary said said were Hezbol­lah sites, in­clud­ing weapons stor­age fa­cil­i­ties. A day ear­li­er, an Is­raeli airstrike killed 13 peo­ple in the Pales­tin­ian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh, the dead­liest of Is­raeli at­tacks on Lebanon since a cease­fire in the Is­rael-Hezbol­lah war a year ago.

The Is­raeli mil­i­tary said Hezbol­lah was work­ing to reestab­lish it­self and re­build its ca­pac­i­ty in south­ern Lebanon, with­out pro­vid­ing ev­i­dence. It said the weapons’ fa­cil­i­ties tar­get­ed were em­bed­ded among civil­ians and vi­o­lat­ed un­der­stand­ings be­tween Is­rael and Lebanon. Is­rael agreed to a cease­fire and with­drew from south­ern Lebanon last year and Lebanon agreed to quell Hezbol­lah ac­tiv­i­ty in the area.

Ear­li­er Wednes­day, an Is­raeli airstrike on a car in the south­ern Lebanese vil­lage of Tiri killed one per­son and wound­ed 11, in­clud­ing stu­dents aboard a near­by bus, the Lebanese Health Min­istry and state me­dia said. State-run Na­tion­al News Agency said the school bus hap­pened to be pass­ing near the car that was hit.

Is­rael’s mil­i­tary lat­er said it killed a Hezbol­lah op­er­a­tive in the drone strike.

New Is­raeli set­tle­ment near Beth­le­hem

Mean­while, Is­raeli set­tlers re­port­ed­ly set up a new set­tle­ment near Beth­le­hem in Gush Et­zion overnight. Et­zion Coun­cil Chair­man Yaron Rosen­thal wel­comed the set­tle­ment as an Is­raeli “re­turn to the city of our ma­tri­arch Rachel, of King David.”

Rosen­thal said the new com­mu­ni­ty would “strength­en the con­nec­tion be­tween the east­ern part” of Et­zion and Jerusalem.

Is­rael cap­tured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza — ar­eas claimed by the Pales­tini­ans for a fu­ture state — in the 1967 Mideast war. It has set­tled over 500,000 Jews in the West Bank, most of whom live on au­tho­rised set­tle­ments, in ad­di­tion to over 200,000 oth­ers in con­test­ed east Jerusalem, which it claims as part of its cap­i­tal.

A grow­ing wave of set­tler vi­o­lence in the West Bank has been con­demned by Is­rael’s pres­i­dent and high-rank­ing mil­i­tary of­fi­cials.

Is­rael’s gov­ern­ment is dom­i­nat­ed by far-right pro­po­nents of the set­tler move­ment in­clud­ing Fi­nance Min­is­ter Beza­lel Smotrich, who for­mu­lates set­tle­ment pol­i­cy, and Cab­i­net min­is­ter Ita­mar Ben-Gvir, who over­sees the na­tion’s po­lice force.

DEIR AL-BAL­AH, Gaza (AP) —