Tel Aviv: Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip early Sunday morning killed 18 people, including four who were hiding in a tent camp for Palestinian settlers inside a hospital complex. A stabbing attack by Palestinians killed two people outside Tel Aviv.
Tensions have been high since the nearly 10-month war in Gaza, with two senior militants killed in separate attacks in Lebanon and Iran last week. The killings have prompted threats of retaliation from Iran and its allies and raised fears of a much more destructive regional war.
A woman in her 70s and a man in his 80s were killed in the stabbing attack, and two other men were wounded, according to Israel's Magen David Adom rescue team and a nearby hospital. Police said the attack was carried out by “deactivated” Palestinian militants.
Rescue workers said the wounded were found in three locations, about 500 meters (yards) apart. Police initially said they were looking for other suspects, but later ruled out the possibility that there was more than one attacker.
Israel is bracing for retaliation after a Hezbollah commander was killed in a strike in Lebanon last week, and a top Hamas political leader was killed in an attack in the Iranian capital. Both targeted killings are linked to the ongoing war in Gaza, which began when Hamas launched an attack on Israel on October 7.
Israel struck a tent camp housing displaced Palestinians in the courtyard of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital in the Gaza Strip early Sunday morning, killing four people, including a woman, and wounding several others, according to the Gaza Strip's Health Ministry.
An Associated Press reporter filmed men rushing to the scene to fight the fire, help the injured and retrieve bodies.
The Israeli military said the airstrike targeted Palestinian militants, which it said caused secondary explosions “indicating the presence of weapons in the area”.
The hospital in Deir al-Balah is the main medical facility in central Gaza, and thousands of people have fled there after fleeing their homes in war-torn areas. A separate attack on a house near Deir al-Balah killed a girl and her parents, according to the hospital.
Another airstrike destroyed a house in northern Gaza, killing at least eight people, including three children, their parents and their grandmother, the ministry said. An airstrike on a vehicle in Gaza City killed three people, according to Civil Defense, an emergency response unit operating under the Hamas government.
Military officials said on Sunday that Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired at least five projectiles at Israeli communities near the border, but there were no casualties or damage.
At least 16 people were killed and 21 wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a shelter-turned-school in Gaza City on Saturday, Gaza's health ministry said Sunday. The Israeli military, which regularly accuses Palestinian militants of taking refuge in civilian areas, said the strikes struck a Hamas command center.
Israel says it tries not to harm civilians, but the military rarely mentions individual attacks that often kill women and children. The Gaza Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its tallies.
Hamas-led militants carried out a surprise attack in southern Israel last October, killing about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and taking about 250 hostage.
At least 39,550 Palestinians have been killed in the massive Israeli offensive in Gaza, the region’s health ministry said, without specifying how many were militants. Massive airstrikes and ground operations have caused widespread destruction and displaced most of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents multiple times.
Hezbollah has been regularly engaged in gun battles with Israel along the Lebanese border since the war began, a move the militant group says is aimed at relieving pressure on its Iran-backed ally Hamas. The attacks and counter-attacks have intensified in recent months, raising fears of a more destructive regional war.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, more than 590 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank since the war began in Gaza. Most have died during Israeli airstrikes and violent protests. Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war, and Palestinians want all three for a future state.
