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Israel fired airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing at least 11 people, Palestinian officials said, in what the military called a response to ceasefire violations by Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Gaza medics said an Israeli airstrike on a tent encampment housing displaced families killed at least four people, while health officials said another strike killed five in Khan Younis in the south and another person was shot dead in the north.
Airstrikes also targeted what was thought to be a commander of the Islamic Jihad group, an ally of Hamas, in the Tel Al-Hawa neighbourhood in Gaza City.
Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesperson in Gaza, accused Israel of committing a new “massacre” against displaced Palestinians, calling it a serious breach of the ceasefire days before the first meeting of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace.”
An Israeli military official called Sunday’s strikes “precise” and in line with international law, and said the group had repeatedly violated an October ceasefire agreement.
The Gaza Health Ministry says that at least 600 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the ceasefire deal began. Israel says four soldiers have been killed by militants in Gaza over the same period.
Israel and Hamas have traded blame for violations of the ceasefire deal, a key element of Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza, the deadliest and most destructive in the generations-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Israel-Hamas war started when Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing more than 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s air and ground war in Gaza has killed more than 72,000 people since then, according to Palestinian Health Ministry data.
Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ to meet Thursday
“In recent hours, the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] has begun striking in response to Hamas’s blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement yesterday in the Beit Hanoun area,” an Israeli military official said.
The official said militants had emerged from a tunnel on the Israeli side of the “yellow line” agreed under the ceasefire to demarcate Israeli- and Hamas-controlled areas.
“Crossing the yellow line in the vicinity of IDF troops, while armed, is an explicit ceasefire violation — and demonstrates how Hamas systematically violates the ceasefire agreement with intent to harm IDF troops,” the official said.
Israel has unilaterally moved the yellow line deeper into Gaza even though Israeli withdrawals are part of the ceasefire deal, and Hamas has so far rejected demands to lay down its weapons, also envisaged in the plan. Israel has said it will have to force Hamas to disarm if it does not do so.
Qassem, the Hamas spokesperson, urged those attending the first meeting of Trump’s new international Board of Peace for Gaza on Thursday to pressure Israel to stop violating the truce and implement the agreement without delay.
U.S. President Donald Trump has launched his ‘Board of Peace’ with an initial goal of rebuilding Gaza. The 35 signatory countries include regional Middle East powers such as Israel, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but traditional U.S. allies have been wary of joining.
U.S. officials told Reuters last week that Trump will announce a multibillion-dollar reconstruction plan for Gaza and detail plans for a United Nations-authorized stabilization force for the Palestinian enclave at the meeting in Washington, D.C.
The Israeli military said it continued to destroy underground tunnels in the northern Gaza Strip in accordance with the agreement and that its aircraft had attacked a building east of the yellow line after seeing militants emerging from a tunnel, killing at least two of them. Gaza officials had no information on those reported casualties.
Hospital slams move by MSF to suspend most services
One of Gaza’s last functioning large hospitals condemned the move by Doctors Without Borders, also known by its acronym MSF, to pull out of operations over concerns about armed men, saying on Sunday that the hospital had installed civil police for security.
MSF said in a statement on Saturday that all of its non-critical medical operations at Nasser Hospital were suspended due to security breaches that posed “serious” threats to its teams and patients.
The organization said there had been an increase in patients and staff seeing armed men in parts of the compound since the U.S.-brokered October ceasefire was reached.
Nasser Hospital said on Sunday that the increase in armed men was due to a civilian police presence aimed at protecting patients and staff and that MSF’s “allegations are factually incorrect, irresponsible, and pose a serious risk to a protected civilian medical facility.”
Located in Khan Younis, Nasser Hospital is one of Gaza’s few functioning hospitals. Hundreds of patients and war-wounded have been treated there daily, and the facility was a hub for Palestinian prisoners released by Israel in exchange for Israeli hostages as part of the current ceasefire deal.
“MSF teams have reported a pattern of unacceptable acts including the presence of armed men, intimidation, arbitrary arrests of patients and a recent situation of suspicion of movement of weapons,” the organization said. The suspension occurred in January but was only recently announced.
Nasser Hospital staff say that in recent months, it has been repeatedly attacked by masked, armed men and militias, which is why the presence of an armed civilian police force is crucial.
Hamas remains the dominant force in areas not under Israeli control, including in the area where Nasser Hospital is located. But other armed groups have mushroomed across Gaza as a result of the war, including groups backed by Israel’s army in the Israeli-controlled part of the strip.
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