GAZA CITY: Israeli air strikes killed 28 people in Gaza, including children, according to the civil defence agency, as the military said it attacked in response to a Hamas ceasefire violation.
Despite a US-brokered ceasefire entering its second phase earlier this month, violence in the Palestinian territory has continued, with both Israel and Hamas accusing each other of violating the truce agreement.
The latest bloodshed comes after Israel announced it would reopen the crucial Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt on Sunday for the ‘limited movement of people’.
“Twenty-eight martyrs have been recovered, a quarter of whom are children, a third of whom are women and one elderly man,” the civil defence agency, a rescue force operating under the Hamas authority, said in a statement, adding that people were still missing under the rubble.
“Residential apartments, tents, shelters and a police station were targeted, resulting in this humanitarian catastrophe,” agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.
One strike hit the police station in the Sheikh Radwan district of Gaza City, the territory’s largest urban centre.
Gaza’s general police directorate said seven people were killed in that attack, while Bassal said the dead included four women police officers.
“The killed included police officers and personnel as well as civilians who were present at the station at the time,” the directorate said.
About a dozen first responders rushed to the devastated building and pulled bodies from the rubble. – AFP
