Israeli attacks in Gaza have killed 33 people and injured many more, according to medical officials, in one of the most serious escalations of violence since the US-backed ceasefire came into effect last month.
Officials at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis said they received the bodies of 17 people, including five women and five children, after four Israeli airstrikes targeted tents sheltering displaced people. In Gaza City, medical officials said two airstrikes killed 16 people, including seven children and three women.
Israel said it launched the attacks after its soldiers came under fire in Khan Younis on Wednesday, though they suffered no reported casualties. Hamas condemned the Israeli strikes as a “shocking massacre” and denied firing toward Israeli troops.
Palestinians in Gaza said they felt as if the two-year war had never stopped. Officials in the territory say more than 300 people have been killed by Israeli strikes since the ceasefire.
“My daughter kept asking me all night, ‘Will the war come back?’ Every time we try to regain hope, the shelling starts again. When will this nightmare end?” Lina Kuraz, 33, from the Tuffah neighbourhood, east of Gaza City, told Agence France-Presse.
Mohammed Hamdouna, 36, who was displaced from northern Gaza to a tent in al-Mawasi, said the war had not ended. “The intensity of the death toll has decreased, but martyrs and shelling happen every day. We are still living in tents. The cities are rubble; the crossings are still closed, and all the basic necessities of life are still lacking,” he said.
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