Gaza health officials say Israeli strikes kill 11

GAZA CITY: Gaza health officials said Israeli strikes on Saturday killed at least 11 people, including four members of the same family, in the latest violence to rock the Palestinian territory despite a ceasefire.

Israel and Hamas trade near-daily accusations of truce violations and the Gaza Strip remains gripped by bloodshed as progress on permanently ending the war remains stalled.

An overnight Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in the Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City killed four members of the Al-Safadi family, including the husband, wife and their two daughters, according to the civil defence agency, a rescue service that operates under Hamas authority.

It said the strike also injured 12 others.

Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital confirmed receiving the bodies of four members of the Safadi family, including two children.

“Around 2 o’clock, my cousins were asleep when a missile struck them. They have no connection to Hamas, nor are they involved in anything. They’re just innocent children,” said Nael al-Safadi, a relative.

AFP footage from the scene showed an exterior wall of the apartment blown off, exposing rubble, clothes, mattresses and other household belongings strewn across the shattered interior.

“By God, I still feel as though I’m in a dream – I never expected this to happen to us,” Mohammad al-Safadi, who survived the strike, told AFP.

“I’m a civilian. I swear to God I’ve never carried a weapon or fired one. What do you want from me? Go after whoever you’re after, what’s my fault in this?,” Al-Safadi added.

Al-Shifa hospital, meanwhile, said it had received one body following a separate Israeli drone strike near an intersection in the north of Gaza City.

Later on Saturday, six more people were killed in separate Israeli attacks, including three when an Israeli aircraft targeted a house in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, the civil defence agency reported.

It said the three killed included a local Palestinian journalist working with Qatar-based Al Jazeera.

Ahmed Wishah was a cameraman for the channel, the network said, which condemned “the continuation of these crimes” against its journalists.

The military, however, said he was a “Hamas terrorist”.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the other deaths, which were confirmed by Gaza hospitals.

At least 1,012 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect on Oct 10 last year, according to the territory’s health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the UN.

The Israeli army has reported five deaths in its ranks during the same period.

Restrictions imposed on media outlets and limited access in Gaza prevent AFP from independently verifying tolls or freely covering the violence there.