An Israeli air strike killed at least 29 Palestinians, including children, in a house in Shejaia in Gaza City, local health authorities said on Wednesday.
Medics said dozens of others were wounded in the attack that hit a multi-floor residential building in the eastern suburb of Gaza City. Many were still believed to be missing and trapped under the ruins of the building. The strike damaged several other houses nearby, medics said.
The Israeli military said in a statement it struck a senior Hamas militant responsible for planning and executing attacks from Shejaia in northern Gaza, whom it did not identify. The military said several steps were taken before the attack to mitigate harm to civilians.
Local health authorities said nine other Palestinians were killed in separate Israeli military strikes in other parts of the enclave, raising Wednesday’s death toll to 38.
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Last week, the military ordered Shejaia residents to evacuate, saying forces intended to operate against militants in the area.
Israel resumed its bombardment of Gaza on March 18th after a two-month truce and sent troops back into the enclave. The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says Israeli military strikes have killed nearly 1,500 Palestinians in the three weeks since then.
Since late March Israel has ordered Gazans out of territory around the edges of the enclave to create what it describes as a security zone; residents fear the aim is to permanently depopulate swathes of territory.
Israel has imposed a blockade on food, fuel and humanitarian aid that has left civilians facing acute shortages as supplies dwindle. It has pledged to seize large parts of the Palestinian territory and establish a new security corridor through it.
The armed wings of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad have meanwhile resumed firing rockets into Israel.
Israel and Hamas have traded blame over the stalemate in the ceasefire talks. Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have stepped up efforts to restore calm but have so far failed to bridge the gap between the warring parties.
The ceasefire brought a much-needed reprieve from the fighting to war-weary Palestinians in Gaza and sent an infusion of humanitarian aid to the territory.
It also led to the release of 25 living Israeli hostages held in Gaza and the return of the remains of eight others, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
Mediators have since attempted to bring the sides to a bridging agreement that would again pause the war, free hostages and open the door for talks on the war’s end, something Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu says he will not agree to until Hamas is defeated.
Hamas wants the war to end before it frees the remaining 59 hostages it holds, 24 of whom are believed to be alive.
Israel’s war in Gaza was triggered in October 2023, when Hamas fighters killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and took some 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, more than 50,800 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military campaign, Palestinian authorities have said. − Agencies
