Israel’s latest strike on Gaza killed five, including two children, raising concerns over a fragile ceasefire. IDF noted that five of its soldiers were wounded in the Wednesday strikes
The tensions in
West Asia continue to brew as a report emerges that an Israeli strike on Gaza killed five people, including two children. The
Gaza civil defence agency confirmed the death toll to AFP on Wednesday.
“Five citizens, including two children, killed and others injured, some seriously, as a result of an Israeli missile strike,” in al-Mawasi, west of
Khan Younis, civil defence spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told AFP. The agency said that the Israeli strikes hit near the Kuwaiti field hospital in Khan Younis and “targeted” a shelter camp.
The hospital in Gaza also maintained that five people, including two children aged eight and 10, and another 32 people were wounded. Meanwhile, in its latest update, the Israeli military said that it had struck a “
Hamas terrorist” in southern Gaza in response to a clash with Palestinian militants in the area that left five soldiers wounded.
It is pertinent to note that a fragile US-brokered ceasefire that came into effect on October 10 has largely halted the active clashes in the coastal enclave. However, both sides have often accused each other of violating their terms.
How Israel reacted
On Wednesday, the
Israeli military released a statement on the strikes. It said that during its operation in the area of eastern Rafah, soldiers encountered several militants “who emerged from an underground terrorist infrastructure”.
“During the encounter, an [Israeli] combat soldier was severely injured, two additional combat soldiers and a noncommissioned officer were moderately injured,” the military said in the statement. It added that the soldiers were evacuated to the hospital for treatment, and their families had been notified.
In the second statement, the
Israel Defence Forces (IDF) confirmed the airstrike but did not provide details about the fifth injured soldier. Meanwhile, the office of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went on to accuse Hamas of violating the ceasefire agreement.
A security source in Gaza told AFP that at about 4 pm local time, “very heavy artillery shelling took place from occupation vehicles east of Rafah city, along with heavy gunfire from warplanes”. The source said an Israeli helicopter had also landed in the area.
On Sunday, the Israeli military said that it had killed more than 40 militants over the past week in operations targeting tunnels near
Rafah. The statement came after Multiple sources told AFP last week that negotiations were underway regarding the fate of the fighters still in south Gaza’s tunnel network. A prominent Hamas member in Gaza told the news agency that the group estimated their number to be 60-80.
The Gaza health ministry has noted that since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect, 360 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire. Israel’s military, on the other hand, has reported three soldiers killed during the same period.
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