GAZA CITY, Palestine: Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Sunday that Israeli air strikes and gunfire killed at least 18 Palestinians, including seven people shot dead while waiting to collect food aid.
Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said that seven people were killed in an Israeli drone strike that hit a hospital courtyard in Gaza City, in the territory’s north.
Witnesses said the victims were members of a Hamas unit, which a source from the Palestinian group described as responsible for distributing aid and “fighting thieves”, AFP reported.
There was no comment from the Israeli military, which is preparing a broader offensive in Gaza City and has sent ground forces to the city’s Zeitun neighbourhood in recent days.
After more than 22 months of the ongoing Israeli bombardment campaign, UN-backed experts have warned of widespread famine unfolding in Gaza, where Israel has drastically curtailed the amount of humanitarian aid it allows in and, according to AFP, convoys have been repeatedly looted.
Israeli air strikes were reported across the Gaza Strip overnight and into the morning on Sunday.
Bassal said four people were killed in a strike that hit a tent sheltering displaced Palestinians in the southern area of Khan Younis.
The civil defence spokesman said Israel continues its intense bombardment of Gaza City’s Zeitun, where troops have carried out a ground operation for the past week.
He said there were many casualties, but civil defence crews were facing “enormous difficulties reaching those trapped under the rubble” due to the ongoing violence and lack of equipment.
Israel on Saturday hinted at an approaching call to push civilians from Gaza City ahead of the new offensive demanded by the security cabinet.
A defence ministry statement said that “as part of the preparations to move the population from combat zones to the southern Gaza Strip for their protection, the supply of tents and shelter equipment to Gaza will resume.”
Hamas later slammed the move, saying the announcement was part of a “brutal assault to occupy Gaza City”.
On the ground on Sunday, Bassal said six people were killed by Israeli gunfire near an aid distribution point in the south.
Another person was killed near an aid site in central Gaza, Bassal added, with a nearby hospital saying the body had been taken there.
The war was triggered by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, according to official figures.
Israel’s offensive has killed more than 61,897 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Gaza which the United Nations considers reliable.
