Gaza— Israel has killed at least 35 Palestinians on Sunday in a series of air strikes and tank fires across Gaza, in violation of the US-brokered ceasefire, Gaza hospitals reported. Israel claimed that these strikes were in response to an attack on its forces in Rafah area.
Six children were killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting Al-Sardi School, south of the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip and Al-Aqsa Hospital announced the deaths of two people, one of them a journalist, in an Israeli airstrike on a building housing journalists in Al-Zawaida.
Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades denied in a statement on Sunday the Israeli accusations that it violated the ceasefire in Rafah in southern Gaza Strip, reaffirming its commitment to the ceasefire.
“We affirm our full commitment to implementing everything that has been agreed upon, foremost among which is the ceasefire in all areas of the Gaza Strip,” the statement said.
On Sunday, Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat reported receiving one dead person and seven injured after Israeli forces targeted an electricity charging point west of Nuseirat camp. This is in addition to four Palestinians killed by the same forces when they targeted a house in Block 4 of the Al-Bureij camp in central Gaza Strip. Four more people were also killed, including two children, in a strike on a tent for displaced people in the Al-Mawasi area.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military announced on Sunday evening the death of two of its soldiers and seriously the wounding of a third in Rafah.
On Friday evening 17 October, eleven Palestinians from one family, including seven children and three women, were killed in an Israeli shelling that targeted a civilian vehicle east of Gaza City, in the largest incident in terms of casualties at that time since the ceasefire agreement went into effect.
Commenting on the uncalled for violent attack on these civilians, the Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip noted that the Israelis “could have warned the family or dealt with them in a manner that did not lead to killing,” adding that “what happened confirms that the Israelis remain determined to commit crimes against the Palestinian people.”
At the same time, Hamas called on President Donald Trump and other mediators of the ceasefire to monitor Israel’s violations and pressure it to respect the agreement.
Commenting on the Rafah incident, Al-Qassam Brigades stressed: “we have no knowledge of any events or clashes taking place in the Rafah area, as these are red zones under the control of the occupation, and communication has been severed with the remainder of our groups there since the resumption of the war in March of this year”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered the military to respond to what he alleged a Hamas’ violations of the ceasefire. The Israeli military did not report any causality among its forces as a result of the claimed Hamas’ attack in Rafah.
According to Reuters, “fearing the truce may collapse, some Palestinians rushed to buy goods from a main market in Nuseirat camp and families quit their homes in Khan Younis further south, after airstrikes hit nearby.”
