TEL AVIV: Israeli strikes killed 18 people in Gaza early on Sunday, including four who were sheltering in a tent camp for displaced Palestinians in a hospital complex, while a stabbing attack by a Palestinian killed two people in a Tel Aviv suburb.
Tensions have risen after nearly 10 months of war in Gaza and the killing of two senior militants in separate attacks in Lebanon and Iran last week. The killings brought threats of retaliation from Iran and its allies and raised fears of an even more devastating regional war.
A 70-year-old woman and an 80-year-old man were killed in the attack, and two other men were wounded, according to Israel's Magen David Adom emergency service and a nearby hospital. Police said the attack was carried out by a Palestinian militant who had been “neutralised”.
Rescuers said the injured were found in three different locations, each about 500 meters (yards) apart. Police initially said they were looking for more suspects, but later ruled out more than one attacker.
Israel is bracing for retaliation after a top Hezbollah commander was killed in a strike in Lebanon and a top political leader of Hamas in an attack in the Iranian capital last week. Both targeted killings were related to the ongoing war in Gaza, which was sparked by a Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October.
In Gaza, an Israeli strike earlier Sunday hit a tented camp of displaced Palestinians in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, killing four people, including a woman, and wounding another, the Gaza Health Ministry said.
An Associated Press reporter filmed men rushing to the scene to help the injured and retrieve bodies as they tried to put out the fire.
The Israeli military said it targeted a Palestinian militant in the attack, which it said caused secondary explosions “indicating the presence of weapons in the area”.
Deir Al-Balah Hospital is the main medical facility operating in central Gaza, and thousands of people have taken refuge there after fleeing their homes in the war-ravaged territory. A separate attack on a house near Deir Al-Balah killed a girl and her parents, according to the hospital.
Another strike leveled a house in northern Gaza and killed at least eight people, including three children, their parents and a grandmother, according to the ministry. Another three people were killed in an airstrike on a vehicle in Gaza City, according to the Civil Defense – rescuers who operate under the Hamas-run government.
Palestinian militants in Gaza fired at least five projectiles at Israeli communities near the border on Sunday without causing casualties or damage, the military said.
An Israeli attack on a school shelter in Gaza City on Saturday killed at least 16 people and wounded 21 others, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which announced the death toll on Sunday. The Israeli military, which regularly accuses Palestinian militants of hiding in civilian areas, said it struck a Hamas command center.
Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians, but the military rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children. The Gaza Ministry of Health does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its calculations.
Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 hostages in their surprise attack on southern Israel last October.
A massive Israeli offensive launched in Gaza has killed at least 39,550 Palestinians, the country's health ministry said, without specifying how many were militants. Heavy airstrikes and ground operations have caused widespread destruction and displaced the vast majority of Gaza's 2.3 million residents, often multiple times.
Hezbollah has regularly traded with Israel along the Lebanese border since the start of the war, with the militant group aiming to ease pressure on its Iranian-backed ally Hamas. Incessant strikes and counterstrikes have escalated in recent months, raising fears of an even more devastating regional war.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, over 590 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank since the start of the Gaza war. Most of them were killed during Israeli airstrikes and violent protests. Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war, and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state.
