Sunday airstrikes in Gaza: Hamas says 11 Palestinians killed, Israel reacts to ceasefire violation
Red Crescent ambulances in Gaza. Photo: AA/ABACA / Abaca Press / Profimedia
Israel launched airstrikes on the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing at least 11 Palestinians, Palestinian officials said, as the Israeli military said it was reacting to ceasefire violations by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, according to Reuters.
Doctors in Gaza said an Israeli airstrike on a tent camp housing displaced families killed at least four people, and health officials said another strike killed five people in Khan Younis in the south and another person was shot dead in the north.
The airstrikes also targeted what was believed to be a commander of the Islamic Jihad group, an ally of Hamas, in the Tel Al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City.
Hamas accuses new “massacre”
Hazem Qassem, the spokesman for Hamas in Gaza, accused Israel of committing a new “massacre” against displaced Palestinians, calling it a serious violation of the ceasefire days before the first meeting of US President Donald Trump's Peace Council.
An Israeli military official described Sunday's strikes as “precision” and in line with international law, and said the Palestinian militant group had repeatedly violated the October truce.
Israel and Hamas have repeatedly accused each other of violating the cease-fire agreement, a key element of Trump's plan to end the Gaza war, the bloodiest and most destructive in the generations-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israel: It was a response to the “flagrant violation” of the ceasefire
“In the last few hours, the IDF (Israeli army) began launching attacks in response to Hamas' flagrant violation of the ceasefire agreement yesterday in the Beit Hanoun area,” an Israeli military official said.
The official said the militants emerged from a tunnel on the Israeli side of the “Yellow Line,” agreed under the cease-fire agreement to demarcate areas controlled by Israel and Hamas.
“Crossing the Yellow Line near IDF troops, while they are armed, constitutes an explicit violation of the cease-fire agreement and demonstrates how Hamas systematically violates the cease-fire agreement with the intention of harming IDF troops,” the official said.
Israel has unilaterally moved the yellow line deeper into Gaza, even though the Israeli withdrawal is part of the ceasefire agreement, and Hamas has so far rejected demands to lay down its arms, also included in the plan. Israel has said it will have to force Hamas to disarm if it does not.
US officials told Reuters last week that Trump would announce a multibillion-dollar reconstruction plan for Gaza and outline plans for a UN-mandated stabilization force for the Palestinian enclave at the meeting in Washington.
