Israeli troops kill five Palestinians sheltering in Gaza school, say hospital chiefs | Gaza
Israeli Defense Forces killed five Palestinians, including a baby, at a school housing displaced people in Gaza on Friday, hospital officials said. The attack brought to 400 the number of Palestinians killed by Israel since a ceasefire came into force in October.
In the statement made by the Palestinian civil defense, it was stated that Israeli soldiers opened fire on the ceasefire line where they had withdrawn, killing Palestinians and wounding many people. He added that he was only able to recover the bodies after coordinating with the UN to ensure they were not exposed to Israeli fire.
The Israeli army said its soldiers spotted “a number of suspicious individuals” and opened fire on them.
The ceasefire line refers to the areas where Israeli troops were withdrawn in accordance with the ceasefire agreement in October; it is indicated on maps by a long yellow line and is physically delimited by yellow concrete markings on the ground. Israeli troops maintain control of about 53 percent of the territory and regularly launch air strikes on areas they do not occupy.
Friday’s killings were the latest in a series of challenges to the ceasefire, which is in its third month and mediators are trying to move into a second phase. In the first phase of the ceasefire, calls were made to end hostilities between Hamas and Israel, to draw Israeli troops to the yellow line, and to increase humanitarian aid to Gaza, which was plunged into famine at the beginning of this year due to Israel’s aid restrictions.
The second phase of the ceasefire is intended to lead to a lasting peace in Gaza, but mediators must first resolve differences between Hamas and Israel on thorny issues. While Israel requires Hamas to lay down its weapons and hand over authority to a civilian transitional authority, an international stabilization force is deployed in Gaza and Israel is planned to withdraw completely from Gaza.
There is no clear agreement between the parties on how to bridge the gap between Hamas and Israel on these points. On Friday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the terms of reference of the international stabilization force, an important part of the ceasefire plan, should be clarified before foreign countries make military commitments.
“To be fair to all the countries that we’ve talked to about having assets in the field, I think they specifically want to know what the mandate is going to be and what the financing mechanism is going to look like,” Rubio said at a news conference. He added that there was “a number of nation states acceptable to all parties” willing to join the international force.
The ceasefire, which has prevented the resumption of all-out financing, has become increasingly shaky as momentum for a permanent end to two years of fighting pauses in Gaza.
Qatari prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani warned on Thursday that any further delay in moving to the second phase of the deal would “endanger the entire process.”
The war in Gaza began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants killed nearly 1,200 people and took 251 hostage. All but one of the hostages and their remains were returned to Israel in exchange for Palestinian detainees and prisoners under the ceasefire agreement.
More than 70,925 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s war in the region, nearly half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry. The death toll is expected to increase as more bodies are found under the rubble.
Much of the strip’s civilian infrastructure and homes were destroyed by Israeli bombardment.
The UN commission, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said Israel committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, but Israel denied this claim.
