Israeli strikes kill 27 in Gaza Strip: health officials

Palestinian health officials said that Israel carried out the heaviest air strikes in the Gaza Strip for weeks and that 27 people, including 3 children, died in the attacks on the police station, houses and tents.

The Israeli military said it targeted commanders and sites belonging to the Palestinian militant group Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad in response to violations of a US-brokered ceasefire last October following two years of war in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas, which controls less than half of the region, said Israel was violating the ceasefire.

It was not stated whether any of its members or sites were hit in Saturday’s attacks.

Israel carried out the attacks a day before the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt was reopened as part of US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war that has left much of the strip in ruins.

The war began after Hamas-led gunmen attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Israeli officials said that the war could continue if Hamas does not lay down its weapons.

Israeli warplanes bombed the Sheikh Radwan police station in the west of Gaza City, killing 10 police officers and detainees, medics and police said.

Hamas-run police said rescue teams were searching the area for more casualties.

Other airstrikes hit at least two homes in Gaza City, in northern Gaza, and a tent camp housing displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis, further south, local officials said.

Video footage from Gaza City showed charred, blackened and collapsed walls of an apartment in a high-rise building, with debris strewn across the street inside and outside the building.

“We found my three little nephews on the street. They say there is a ceasefire or something. What did those children do? What did we do?” Samer al-Atbaş, uncle of the three dead children, said:

The Israeli military said that in addition to targeting Hamas commanders, it also targeted weapons depots and production facilities.

It was stated that the attacks were carried out on Friday in response to an incident in which soldiers spotted eight gunmen emerging from a tunnel in Rafah, south of the area where Israeli forces were deployed under the ceasefire agreement.

While three of the gunmen were killed by security forces, the fourth person, whom the Israeli army identified as a Hamas commander in the region, was also arrested.

Hamas did not comment on the incident.

Dozens of its fighters have been trapped in tunnels near Rafah since the ceasefire, but some have been killed in clashes with Israeli forces.

Violence has repeatedly shaken the ceasefire.

Israeli fire killed more than 500 people, mostly civilians, according to Gaza health officials, and Palestinian militants killed four Israeli soldiers, according to Israeli officials.

The two sides traded blame for ceasefire violations as U.S. officials pressured them to move into the next phases of a ceasefire agreement aimed at ending the conflict completely.

The next phase of Trump’s Gaza plan involves complex issues such as the disarmament of Hamas, a further Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the deployment of an international peacekeeping force, which the group has long rejected.

Reuters reported on Monday that Hamas was trying to recruit 10,000 police officers into the new US-backed Palestinian administration; Israel will probably oppose this request.