More than 20 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip, in the latest escalation despite a truce that was meant to put an end to Israel’s two-year assault on the enclave.
At least 22 Palestinians, including children, were killed on Saturday, medical sources told Al Jazeera, as the Israeli military carried out strikes in Gaza City and in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah and Nuseirat refugee camp.
Dozens of people were also wounded in the wave of attacks.
“This is a reminder that the ceasefire is quite fragile, and in fact, [that the] violence never ended at all,” Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reported from Gaza City.
Noting that hundreds of Palestinians have been killed since the United States-brokered ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas came into effect on October 10, Mahmoud said fear continues to grip Gaza.
Israel has killed at least 318 Palestinians and injured 788 others since the truce began last month, according to the latest figures from the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza.
“What was going at a very fast pace in the past few years has now turned into this slow and steady pattern of killing,” Mahmoud said.
On Saturday, the Israeli military said it was targeting Hamas after its troops came under attack near the so-called yellow line, where the army remains stationed in Gaza.
A statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office also said five senior Hamas members were killed. The Palestinian group did not immediately comment on that claim.
Hamas condemned the latest Israeli attacks as part of Israel’s “systematic” violations of the ceasefire agreement, which it said have killed Palestinians under “fabricated pretexts”.
It also said Israel has pushed westward beyond the yellow line, changing the boundary set out as part of the deal.
“We call upon the mediators to intervene urgently and exert pressure to immediately halt these violations,” the Palestinian group said in a statement.
“We also demand that the US administration fulfill its commitments and compel [Israel] to implement its obligations, and to confront its attempts to undermine the ceasefire in Gaza.”
West Bank attacks
Meanwhile, more Israeli military and settler violence was reported on Saturday in the occupied West Bank amid what the United Nations has described as a record-breaking surge in attacks on Palestinians.
The Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli settlers assaulted Palestinian farmers southeast of Masafer Yatta, in the West Bank’s South Hebron Hills area.
Separately, Wafa said Israeli soldiers also wounded two Palestinians during a raid in Dura, a town south of Hebron.
Israeli attacks in the West Bank have increased in the shadow of Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed nearly 70,000 Palestinians in the coastal enclave since October 2023.
They also come as members of Israel’s far-right government push to formally annex the territory.
Last week, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights noted that 260 Israeli settler attacks were recorded in October – more than in any month since 2006.
“The surge in violence comes as Israeli authorities have ramped up home demolitions, the seizure of property, arrests, and movement restrictions, alongside the unabated building of settlements and outposts and the forcible displacement and transfer of thousands of Palestinians by Israeli settlers and the military,” Thameen Al-Kheetan said in a statement.
“Permanently displacing the Palestinian population within occupied territory amounts to unlawful transfer, which is a war crime. The transfer by Israel of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies also amounts to a war crime.”
