In the latest developments, a medical source said that the death toll from an Israeli bombing that targeted a residential apartment in Al-Nasr Street, west of Gaza City, has risen from one dead to three.
Civil defense officials had previously reported several injuries (the exact number was not specified) in addition to the fatalities. This followed an earlier incident in which a Palestinian fisherman was wounded by Israeli gunfire off the coast of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
On Monday, medical sources reported that a 54-year-old Palestinian man was killed by Israeli fire near the Abu Tamam School in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, outside areas where the Israeli army is deployed. His body was taken to Al-Shifa Hospital in western Gaza City. The sources also reported that farmer Khaled Baraka was killed by Israeli fire east of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, also outside areas where the Israeli army is deployed.
This morning, the Israeli army announced it had killed four Palestinians in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which it occupies under the ceasefire agreement. The army said in a statement that its forces "spotted four armed men emerging from an opening (tunnel) within an underground passage in eastern Rafah."
In recent weeks, the Israeli army announced the killing of dozens of Palestinians in Rafah, claiming to have spotted them emerging from tunnels.
In a related context, Hamas said on Monday evening that Israel is escalating its violations of the ceasefire agreement in effect since last October under "false pretexts," demanding that mediators compel it to "stop the violations."
Qassem explained in a statement that this comes "under false pretenses," asserting that Israel is disregarding all "efforts by mediators and guarantor states seeking to maintain calm in the Gaza Strip." He called on the mediators and guarantor states to "compel Israel to cease its violations of the agreement."
Israel violates the ceasefire agreement, in effect since October 10, on a daily basis, resulting in the deaths of 581 Palestinians and injuries to 1,553, according to the Ministry of Health on Monday. It also prevents the entry of agreed-upon quantities of food, medicine, medical supplies, shelter materials, and prefabricated homes into Gaza, where some 2.4 million Palestinians, including 1.5 million displaced persons, are living in catastrophic conditions.
With American support, on October 8, 2023, Israel launched a two-year war of genocide in Gaza, leaving more than 72,000 martyrs and more than 171,000 wounded, and destroying 90 percent of the infrastructure, with reconstruction costs estimated by the United Nations at about $70 billion.
