- Strikes in West Bank kill nine fighters, including a Hamas commander
CAIRO/ RAMALLAH: An Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced persons in Gaza City killed at least 15 Palestinians on Saturday, hours after two strikes in the occupied West Bank killed nine fighters including a local Hamas commander, Hamas said.
The Israeli military said the first of two West Bank airstrikes hit a vehicle in a town near the city of Tulkarm, targeting a resistance cell it said was on its way to carry out an attack.
A Hamas statement said one of those killed was a commander of its Tulkarm brigades, while its ally Islamic Jihad claimed the other four men who died in the strike as its fighters.
Hours later, a second airstrike in the area targeted another group of fighters who had fired on troops, Israel’s military said, during what it described as a counter-terrorism operation in Tulkarm.
Palestinian news agency WAFA said four people had died in that strike, and Hamas said all nine of those killed in the two Israeli attacks in the West Bank were fighters.
Violence in the West Bank was on the rise before the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and has risen since, with frequent Israeli raids in the territory, which is among those that the Palestinians seek for a state.
There has also been an increase in anti-Israeli street attacks by Palestinians.
Gaza strikes
In the Gaza Strip, at least 15 people were killed in the Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced persons in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, the Hamas run-government media office said.
The Israeli military said the school was being used as a command centre for Hamas, to hide fighters and manufacture weapons. Hamas has denied Israeli accusations that it operates from civilian facilities such as schools and hospitals.
Earlier on Saturday, Israeli strikes in the enclave killed six people in a house in the southern area of Rafah and two others in Gaza City, Gaza health officials said.
The Israeli military said its forces had struck fighters and destroyed Hamas infrastructure in Rafah and elsewhere in the enclave.
At least 39,550 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli military campaign in Gaza, according to Gaza health officials. The offensive was triggered by a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 abducted, according to Israeli tallies.
A high-level Israeli delegation made a brief visit to Cairo on Saturday in an attempt to resume Gaza ceasefire negotiations, Egyptian airport authority sources said. The delegation returned to Israel hours later, Israeli media said.
Chances of a breakthrough appear low as regional tension has soared following the assassination of Hamas’ leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Wednesday, a day after an Israeli strike in Beirut killed Fuad Shukr, a top military commander from Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, which like Hamas is backed by Iran.
Haniyeh’s death was one in a series of killings of senior Hamas figures as the Gaza war nears its 11th month, and it fuelled concern that the conflict in Gaza was turning into a wider Middle East war.
Hamas and Iran have both accused Israel of carrying out the assassination of Haniyeh and have pledged to retaliate. Israel has neither claimed nor denied responsibility for the death.
Italy urged Iran on Saturday to show restraint.
“Italy makes an appeal to Iran, calling on it for restraint and to contribute to a phase of de-escalation throughout the Mediterranean region and the Middle East,” the Foreign Ministry said, adding that the message had been delivered to the Iranian ambassador in Rome.
