Israeli forces killed at least seven Palestinians, including a father and his 13-year-old son, in the Gaza Strip yesterday, local health officials said.
Medics said Fadi Rajab and his son Abubakr were killed in an air strike that hit the roof of a displacement shelter in the Zeitoun neighbourhood in Gaza City. A third Palestinian was killed in an Israeli air strike near a school in Gaza City’s Daraj neighbourhood, health officials added.
The Israeli military said it struck fighters in both areas, without giving further details.
In Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, Israeli gunfire killed a man, medics said.
Later, an air strike hit a metal foundry in the Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City, killing three people, medics said, taking the day’s death toll to at least seven.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the incidents in Khan Younis or the Sabra neighbourhood.
A US-brokered ceasefire last year called for the eventual reconstruction of Gaza, but little progress has been made. Negotiators have been unable to agree on terms for Hamas to disarm or for Israel to withdraw its troops, which control about two-thirds of the territory and from which residents have been ordered to leave.
Israel says Hamas is trying to regroup and refill its arsenal. Hamas says it is committed to the ceasefire agreement and accuses Israel of trying to undermine it.
At least 1,600 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since the ceasefire agreement, according to the territory’s health officials, while Israel says four soldiers have been killed.
Palestinian authorities say more than 74,000 people have been killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza, launched after Hamas-led fighters killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
Meanwhile, Israel’s parliament was sworn in without a new government, after a deadlocked general election stripped Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of his parliamentary majority but left his main rivals with no clear path to power.
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