DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli strikes hit Gaza on Wednesday, killing at least 21 Palestinians, including two children, and further shaking a fragile ceasefire agreement, hospital officials said. Israel said it responded to a militant attack on Israeli soldiers that seriously wounded one.
Deadly Israeli strikes have repeatedly punctuated the truce since it took effect on October 10, and the mounting Palestinian toll has led many in Gaza to say the war continues unabated. Among the Palestinians killed Wednesday were five children, seven women and a paramedic on duty, according to hospital officials.
“The genocidal war against our people in the Gaza Strip continues,” Dr. Mohamed Abu Selmiya, director of Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, said in a Facebook post. “Where is the ceasefire? Where are the mediators?”
Israel strongly denies allegations that it is committing genocide in Gaza. The war began on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led militants poured into southern Israel after a surprise rocket barrage, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251.
Deadly strikes continued despite the ceasefire agreement
The deal sought to end the more than two-year war between Israel and Hamas. While the heaviest fighting has subsided, it has been marred by repeated outbreaks of violence.
A total of 556 Palestinians have been killed by Israel and 1,500 wounded since the ceasefire took effect, according to Gaza health officials, while the Israeli military says four Israeli soldiers have been killed.
The Israeli military has said its continued attacks are in response to Hamas violations or militant attacks on its soldiers, but dozens of civilians have died. Eight Arab and Muslim countries, including mediators Egypt and Qatar, recently condemned what they called “repeated violations” of the agreement by Israel.
An Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity in accordance with military policy, told The Associated Press that Israel’s latest attacks were in response to gunfire by militants that seriously wounded a reservist early Wednesday.
The early morning strike killed 11 people, including two children
Israeli troops fired on a building in the northern Gaza neighborhood of Tuffah, killing at least 11 people, most of them from the same family, said Shifa Hospital, which received the bodies. The dead included two parents, their 10-day-old baby girl Wateen Khabbaz, her 5-month-old cousin Mira Khabbaz, and the children’s grandmother.
Mourners gathered in the courtyard of Shifa Hospital on Wednesday morning for the funeral prayers.
“What did this child do?… Why do they kill children?” asked a relative of the family, Mohammad Jaser.
“We don’t understand why this is happening to us. What are we doing? Where are we going? This is not life,” he said.
Two small children were seen kneeling by their father’s body as a woman told them to say goodbye to him. A young girl kissed her father’s cheeks.
The strikes on Gaza continue until Wednesday afternoon
Later, an Israeli strike on a family’s tent in the southern town of Khan Younis killed three people, including a 12-year-old boy, said Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies.
A strike on a tent in the Muwasi area of Khan Younis killed at least two people and wounded five others, according to a field hospital run by the Palestinian Red Crescent in the area. Among the dead was Hussein Hassan Hussein al-Semieri, a paramedic who was on duty at the time, the hospital said.
Thirty-eight Palestinians were wounded in total in Wednesday’s attacks, the Gaza Health Ministry said.
Crossing through the Rafah border is minimal
The opening of the Rafah border crossing on Monday was hailed as a step forward for the fragile ceasefire. But since then, Palestinians’ passage through the crossing has been plagued by delays, interrogations and uncertainty over who will be allowed through.
It took all day Tuesday for 40 Palestinians to enter Gaza. At around 1am on Wednesday, they finally arrived at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, where their families received them. By midday Wednesday, no one else had passed through the crossing.
Despite the fact that there is no traffic, a European Union official said that the Rafah border crossing is open. An EU mission and Palestinian workers were present at the crossing. The official, tasked with communicating for the EU, spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to be named.
Three women who crossed into Gaza on Monday told The Associated Press a day later that Israeli troops blindfolded and handcuffed them, then interrogated and threatened them, holding them for several hours before releasing them.
The EU official said the border mission was not aware of any confiscation of luggage or ill-treatment by Israeli or Palestinian soldiers in the border areas.
Asked about the reports, the Israeli military said there were “no known incidents of misconduct, mistreatment, detention or confiscation of property by the Israeli security establishment.”
The ceasefire agreement is moving forward
Although all fighting has not stopped, some parts of the ceasefire agreement have advanced.
Hamas has released all the hostages it was holding, and in return, Israel has released several thousand Palestinians and is beginning to reopen Rafah. Increasing amounts of humanitarian aid have arrived in Gaza, and a new technocratic committee has been appointed to manage the territory’s day-to-day affairs.
But other key elements of the ceasefire appear to have stalled, including the deployment of an international security force, the disarmament of Hamas and the reconstruction of Gaza. The US has given no timeline on when those parts of the deal will end.
More than 71,800 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians. The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are generally considered reliable by UN agencies and independent experts.
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Magdy reported from Cairo and Frankel from Jerusalem. AP writer Sam McNeil contributed from Brussels.