Israeli strikes kill 24 in Gaza, health officials say

By Dawoud Abu Alkas, Nidal al-Mughrabi and Pesha Magid

GAZA/CAIRO/JERUSALEM, Feb 4 (Reuters) – Israeli tank shelling and airstrikes killed 24 Palestinians including seven children in Gaza on Wednesday, health officials said, the latest violence to undermine the nearly four-month-old ceasefire in the enclave. 

Among the dead was a medic who rushed to help victims of a strike in the southern city of Khan Younis and was then killed by a second attack on the same location, health officials said.

Other strikes hit Gaza City in the north, where health officials said a 5-month-old boy was killed. The attacks come three days after Israel reopened Gaza’s main border crossing with Egypt, a big step envisaged by the U.S.-backed truce deal. 

“While we were sleeping in our house, the tank shelled us and the shells hit our house, our children were martyred – my son was martyred, my brother’s son and daughter were martyred … We have nothing to do with anything, we are peaceful people,” said Abu Mohamed Habouch, speaking at a funeral for his family.

Tents in Mawasi, a coastal area near Khan Younis crowded with Gazans displaced by the conflict, had been ripped apart by the strikes. Nearly all of Gaza’s population of over 2 million were forced to flee their homes during the war. 

The Israeli military said it launched the strikes in response to Palestinian militants opening fire on Israeli troops operating near its armistice line with Hamas. It said an Israeli soldier was severely injured by the militant fire, which it described as a violation of the ceasefire agreement. 

A subsequent statement said one of the Israeli strikes had targeted a senior Hamas commander. 

A commander from Hamas’ smaller ally, Islamic Jihad, and his 11-year-old daughter were among those killed in strikes on Wednesday, according to relatives.

The Israeli military later confirmed in a statement that it had killed an Islamic Jihad commander. 

Hamas said Israel’s actions undermined efforts to stabilise the ceasefire. In a statement, the group called for “immediate international pressure to halt violations.”

RAFAH REOPENING

Palestinian patients preparing to cross through the newly opened Rafah crossing to Egypt were told that Israel had postponed the passage of patients through the border. Afterwards, Palestinian health authorities said that the group of patients was on their way to the border.

The Israeli agency that controls access to Gaza, COGAT, said the Rafah crossing remained open but it had not received the necessary details from the World Health Organization to facilitate crossings. The WHO did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

An Egyptian security source told Reuters that Israel had cited security issues in the Rafah area as the reason for the temporary closure, but those had since been resolved and work had resumed at the border.

A spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said 46 people were set to cross to Egypt on Wednesday, but only 20 were able to travel to Egypt while the other 26 were returned to Gaza.

Reopening the crossing was one of the requirements under the October ceasefire that set out the first phase of U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to stop fighting between Israel and Islamist Hamas militants.

Sixteen patients from Gaza and 40 of their escorts crossed into Egypt on Tuesday, Gazan medics told Reuters. A Hamas police source told Reuters that at least 40 people crossed from Egypt to Gaza late on Tuesday. 

On Saturday, before the Rafah reopening, Israeli strikes killed more than 30 Palestinians in Gaza. The military said it launched those strikes after gunmen emerged from a tunnel in a Gaza area under Israeli control. 

SECOND PHASE OF CEASEFIRE 

Israel handed back 54 bodies and 66 boxes of human remains of Palestinians on Wednesday, according to Gaza’s health authorities, with the fragile ceasefire set to move towards its second phase. 

Trump declared the start of the second phase in January, in which the sides would negotiate the shattered enclave’s future governance and reconstruction.

Key issues like the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the over 50% of Gaza they currently occupy and the disarmament of Hamas remain unresolved, while the fragile ceasefire has been marked by near-daily violence. 

Since the October start of the truce, Israeli fire has killed nearly 560 people, most of them civilians, according to Gaza health officials. Palestinian militants have killed four Israeli soldiers in the same period, Israeli authorities say.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo and Dawoud Abu Alkas in Gaza City. Additional reporting by Tala Ramadan and Pesha Magid; Writing by Pesha Magid; Editing by Rami Ayyub, Ros Russell, Mark Heinrich, Rod Nickel)