Israeli military strikes killed at least 23 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, including a journalist, a pregnant woman, and a senior rescue service official, according to local Hamas-controlled health authorities. The Israel Defense Forces did not comment on any of the strikes.
The latest deaths in the campaign resulted from separate Israeli strikes in Khan Younis in the south, Jabalia in the north, and Nuseirat and Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, medics said.
Israel has stepped up its air campaign in Gaza in recent days, saying Saturday that it struck 100 targets across the territory, targeting terror operatives and sites. The military says it takes steps to minimize harm to civilians, while noting that terror groups operate from within Gaza’s civilian population.
In Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, a strike hit a tent housing displaced people, killing a mother, her two children and another relative, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said five people were killed in a strike on a home in Jabalia, in the north.
He added some people were still under the debris, as “the civil defense does not have search equipment or heavy equipment to lift the rubble to rescue the wounded and recover the martyrs.”
Also in Jabalia, local journalist Hassan Majdi Abu Warda and several family members were killed by an airstrike that hit his house earlier in the day, according to the Hamas-run civil defense agency.
According to the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, Abu Warda’s death raised the number of Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, to 220.
Israel has repeatedly alleged that journalists killed in strikes were actually terror operatives who posed as reporters; it maintains that Hamas uses hospitals, schools, shelters, and aid infrastructure as cover for terror activities.
Two more people, including a pregnant woman, were killed in an attack targeting tents sheltering displaced people around Nuseirat in central Gaza, Bassal added.
Also in Nuseirat, medics said that an airstrike killed Ashraf Abu Nar, a senior official in the territory’s civil emergency service, and his wife in their house.
The Israeli military did not respond to request for comment on any of the airstrikes in Gaza on Sunday, but did say that a recent strike in the Strip killed a Hamas terrorist who infiltrated Israel during the October 7, 2023, onslaught.
The IDF said Ahmad Osama Hassan Al-Lahouni, who served in Hamas’s naval commando unit, was killed in a strike carried out jointly by the Southern Command, Israeli Air Force, Intelligence Directorate, Navy, and Shin Bet.
Lahouni had infiltrated the Kerem Shalom area on October 7, according to the IDF.
Later on Sunday, media outlets in Gaza published footage showing dozens of people attempting to loot a truck carrying humanitarian aid in downtown Gaza City.
The video showed crowds trying to unload aid from the vehicle before gunfire is heard, prompting the crowd to disperse. Whether the truck ultimately reached its intended destination or was looted remains unclear.
A similar incident was reported Saturday in Khan Younis, where, according to reports, dozens of people surrounded another aid truck and took its contents.
On Saturday, a UAE-affiliated aid organization announced that of the 24 trucks it had sent into Gaza in recent days carrying humanitarian supplies — primarily flour and baking materials — 23 were stolen and never reached their intended destinations, such as bakeries or storage warehouses in the Strip.
The armed wing of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad said in separate statements Sunday that fighters carried out several ambushes and attacks using bombs and anti-tank rockets against Israeli forces operating in several areas across Gaza. The military did not refer to any such incidents.
The military has stepped up its Gaza operations in recent days in what it has described as a renewed push to destroy Hamas, calling for the evacuation of civilians from large swaths of the enclave, including the entire city of Khan Younis in the southern Strip.
Gaza’s health ministry said Sunday that at least 3,785 people had been killed in the territory since the latest ceasefire collapsed on March 18, taking the war’s overall toll to 53,939 — a figure that cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.
The war broke out on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led terrorists invaded Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251. Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are still holding 58 hostages, including 57 of the 251 abducted on October 7.
Earlier, on Saturday night, an IDF soldier was seriously injured in an altercation with another soldier in the northern Gaza Strip, the military announced.
Military Police said they launched a criminal investigation into the incident, saying that its findings will be sent to the Military Advocate General for examination.
The military added that the suspect has been suspended from combat service, pending the completion of the investigation into the incident. Afterward, a permanent decision will be made regarding him status.
According to a preliminary probe, the soldier beat his comrade with a kettle at an encampment in north Gaza.
The wounded soldier served with the Nahal Brigade’s 931st Battalion. He was taken to a hospital and his family was notified.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 420.