Death toll from Israeli strikes in Gaza reaches 33

Palestinians inspect the ruins a day after an Israeli strike on a building in Gaza City (Jehad Alshrafi/AP)

A pair of Israeli strikes in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis early on Thursday killed five people, according to hospital officials, bringing the death toll from airstrikes in the Palestinian territory over a roughly 12-hour period to 33.

The strikes have been some of the deadliest since October 10, when a US-brokered ceasefire came into force.

The renewed escalation came after Israel said its soldiers had come under fire in Khan Younis on Wednesday. Israel said no soldiers were killed and responded with strikes.

Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in an Israeli strike (Jehad Alshrafi/AP)

Officials at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis said they received the bodies of 17 people, including five women and five children, following four Israeli airstrikes targeting tents sheltering displaced people.

In Gaza City, two airstrikes on a building killed 16 people, including seven children and three women, according to officials at the Al-Shifa hospital in the northern part of the city, where the bodies were taken.

Hamas condemned the Israeli strikes as a “shocking massacre”. In a statement, the group denied firing toward Israeli troops.

Hospital officials said the bodies came from both sides of a line established in last month’s ceasefire. The boundary splits Gaza in two, leaving the border zone under Israeli military control while the area beyond it is meant to serve as a safe zone.

Some 33 people were killed in combined strikes across Gaza (Jehad Alshrafi/AP)

Israeli strikes have decreased since the ceasefire agreement took effect, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, though they have not stopped entirely.

The ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, reported more than 300 deaths since the truce began, an average of more than seven per day.

Each side has accused the other of violating its terms, which include increasing the flow of aid into Gaza and returning hostages — dead or alive — to Israel.

The deaths are among the more than 69,000 Palestinians killed since Israel launched its sweeping offensive more than two years ago in response to Hamas-led militants abducting 251 people and killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the October 7 2023 attack that triggered the war.

Gaza’s Health Ministry, part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals, maintains detailed records seen as a reliable estimate by the UN and many independent experts.