Tel Aviv: An Israeli attack early Sunday killed 18 people in the Gaza Strip, including four who were sheltering in tents for displaced Palestinians inside a hospital building, while a stabbing attack by Palestinians killed two people in a Tel Aviv suburb.
Tensions have risen after a nearly 10-month war in the Gaza Strip and the killing of two senior militants in separate attacks in Lebanon and Iran last week. The killings prompted threats of retaliation from Iran and its allies, and raised fears that the war in the region could become more destructive.
Israeli rescue workers from Magen David Adom and a nearby hospital reported that a 70-year-old woman and an 80-year-old man were killed in the stabbing, and two other men were wounded. Police said the attack was carried out by a Palestinian terrorist group that had been “eliminated.”
Rescue workers said they found three injured people in three locations about 500 meters apart. Police initially said they were searching for other suspects, but later ruled out the possibility of more than one attacker.
Israel is bracing for retaliation following the killing last week of a senior Hezbollah leader in Lebanon and a senior political leader of the Hamas group in Iran, both linked to the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, which was sparked by a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7.
In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army attacked a tent camp housing Palestinians in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa warriors' hospital early Sunday, killing four people, including a woman, and wounding several others, the Gaza Health Ministry said.
AP reporters filmed several men rushing to the scene to help the injured and retrieve bodies, while trying to put out the fire.
The Israeli military said it had hit the Palestinian militants who carried out the attack, causing a second explosion “indicating the presence of weapons in the area”.
The Deir al-Balah hospital is the main health facility operating in central Gaza and thousands of people have sought refuge there after fleeing their homes in the war-torn area. An attack on a house near Deir al-Balah killed the girl and her parents, the hospital said.
Another attack flattened a house in northern Gaza City, killing at least eight people, including three children, their parents and their grandmother, according to the Civil Defense Ministry, a rescue service operating under the Hamas government. Another three people were killed in a vehicle attack in Gaza City.
Palestinian fighters in the Gaza Strip fired at least five shells into an Israeli settlement near the border on Sunday, without any casualties or damage, the military said.
The Israeli military attacked a school that used to be a shelter in Gaza City on Saturday, killing at least 16 people and wounding 21, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which announced the death toll on Sunday. The Israeli military, which often accuses Palestinian militants of taking shelter from civilians, said it had hit a Hamas command center.
Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians, but the military has rarely commented on individual attacks, which often kill women and children. Gaza's health ministry did not distinguish between civilians and terrorist groups in its report.
Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took around 250 hostages in surprise attacks in southern Israel in October.
Israel's massive offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 39,550 Palestinians, according to the territory's health ministry, which did not say how many militants were killed. Heavy airstrikes and ground operations have caused widespread destruction and displaced Gaza's 2.3 million residents.
Since the war began, Hezbollah has been continuously exchanging fire with Israel along the Lebanese border, with the terrorist group claiming it aims to relieve pressure on its Iranian-backed ally, Hamas. The ongoing attacks and retaliation have intensified in recent months, fueling fears of a further escalation in the regional war.
More than 590 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli shelling in the occupied West Bank since the war in Gaza began, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Most died during Israeli attacks and protests. Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war, and the Palestinians want all three territories as a future state.
