GAZA CITY, Palestine: Gaza’s civil defence agency said 21 people were killed and dozens more wounded in multiple Israeli air strikes on the Palestinian territory on Saturday, further straining the fragile truce between Israel and Hamas.
The ceasefire was brokered by the United States on October 10.
The Israeli military said one person had crossed the Yellow Line boundary within the Gaza Strip, behind which Israeli troops have withdrawn, and fired at soldiers.
Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the civil defence agency, told AFP there were “21 martyrs this evening in five separate Israeli air strikes, in a clear violation of the ceasefire in Gaza”.
The first reported strike targeted a vehicle in the Al-Rimal neighbourhood in western Gaza City.
Israel and Hamas agreed to a US-brokered ceasefire that came into effect last month after more than two years of the Israeli bombardment campaign.
On Wednesday, Gaza saw one of its deadliest days since the truce came into effect, with officials reporting 27 fatalities in Israeli strikes.
According to the health ministry in Gaza on Thursday, 312 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the truce took hold.
Since October 2023, Israel’s relentless bombardment campaign on Gaza has killed at least 69,733 people, according to figures from the health ministry that the UN considers reliable.
Death toll since ceasefire
The Palestinian Health Ministry said seven more bodies were brought to hospitals in the past 24 hours, raising the death toll to 318 since the ceasefire took effect, Al Jazeera reported.
It said 30 people had been wounded in the last two days, bringing the total injuries since 10 October to 788. Many victims remain trapped under rubble in areas rescue teams cannot reach.
The ceasefire, brokered by the United States after more than two years of Israeli bombardment campaign, reduced bombing intensity and allowed some displaced Palestinians to return to their homes.
Israel has pulled back troops from urban areas, and humanitarian aid flows have increased, though still far below need.
But Palestinian health authorities say Israeli strikes have continued, killing 318 people since the truce began.
Over 67 Palestinian children killed since truce
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said at least 67 Palestinian children have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire began.
UNICEF spokesperson Ricardo Pires called the deaths a “devastating reminder” of the fragility of the truce.
He said the toll includes a baby girl killed in an Israeli strike on a home in Khan Younis and seven other children killed the previous day.
“This is during an agreed ceasefire. The pattern is staggering,” he said at a briefing in Geneva.
UNICEF estimates that 64,000 children have been killed or injured in Gaza since the war began in October 2023.
Israel continues attacks
The Israeli military said it killed three Palestinian fighters in Rafah who were “likely” part of a group trapped in a tunnel beneath the city since the ceasefire.
A drone strike in central Gaza City killed at least four people in a vehicle near al-Shifa Hospital, Al Jazeera reported.
Minutes later, two people were killed in Deir el-Balah, while four children were killed in a strike on a residential home in Nuseirat.
About a dozen people were wounded in air strikes across the Strip within the span of an hour.
Residents say the attacks came without warning, reinforcing widespread belief that the ceasefire “exists only on paper”.
Homes demolished and families displaced
Palestinian Civil Defence spokesperson Mahmoud Basal said Israel had expanded the “yellow line” buffer zone by 250 metres following the ceasefire announcement, forcing hundreds of families from their homes in Gaza City.
He said displaced people are crowded into areas without basic services, and the onset of cold weather poses new dangers without urgent humanitarian intervention.
A civil society forum examining alleged Israeli war crimes opened in Barcelona under the banner of the International People’s Tribunal on Palestine, Al Jazeera reported.
The two-day event aims to hear testimony from witnesses and experts on what organisers call Israel’s “genocidal use of ecocide and forced starvation”.
The forum also seeks to highlight what it describes as the complicity of the United States and European backers, including the United Kingdom, France and Germany.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said more than 200 makeshift displacement sites in Gaza face severe flooding risks this winter.
It identified 214 active sites at “particularly high risk” due to their locations and poor conditions, Al Jazeera reported.
