Israeli air strikes kill 32 in Gaza, including children, as military cites Hamas ceasefire violation, casting doubt on truce and Rafah crossing reopening.
GAZA CITY: Israeli air strikes killed 32 people in Gaza on Saturday, according to the Palestinian territory’s civil defence agency.
The agency, a rescue force operating under the Hamas authority, said most of the dead were children and women.
“Residential apartments, tents, shelters and a police station were targeted,” agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said in a statement.
One strike hit a police station in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan district, killing seven people.
Bassal said the dead included four female police officers.
Another attack hit a shelter in the Al-Mawasi area of south Gaza, where tens of thousands of displaced people live.
The number of casualties from that strike was not immediately known.
Israel’s military said the air strikes were retaliation for a ceasefire violation on Friday.
It said forces “struck four commanders and additional terrorists from the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist organisations across the Gaza Strip”.
Hamas political bureau member Suhail al-Hindi rejected the military’s claims.
“What happened today is a fully fledged crime committed by a criminal enemy that does not abide by agreements or respect any commitments,” he told AFP.
The violence casts further doubt on a US-brokered truce that entered its second phase earlier this month.
Both sides have repeatedly accused each other of violating the agreement.
It also comes ahead of the planned reopening of the crucial Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt on Sunday.
Israel has said the reopening will only allow the “limited movement of people”.
Key mediators Egypt and Qatar condemned what they said were Israeli violations of the ceasefire.
Qatar said the violence was a “dangerous escalation that will inflame the situation”.
The health ministry in Gaza says Israeli attacks have killed at least 509 people since the ceasefire began.
Israel’s military says four soldiers have been killed in Gaza in the same period.
