Israeli fire kills 11 Palestinians in Gaza, including 2 children, local hospital officials say
CAIRO (AP) — Israeli forces on Wednesday killed at least 11 Palestinians in Gaza, including two 13-year-old boys, three journalists and a woman, hospitals in the war-battered enclave said.
It was one of the deadliest days in Gaza since the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel took effect in October and comes at a time when the U.S. is trying to push the deal forward and implement its challenging second phase.
Among the dead were three Palestinian journalists who were killed while filming near a displacement camp in central Gaza, a camp official said. The Israeli military said the strike came after it spotted suspects who were operating a drone that posed a threat to its troops.
The two boys were killed in separate incidents. In one strike, a 13-year-old, his father and a 22-year old man were hit by Israeli drones on the eastern side of the central Bureij refugee camp, according to officials from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah, which received the bodies.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the three had crossed into Israeli-controlled areas.
The other 13-year-old who died was shot by troops in the eastern town of Bani Suheila, the Nasser hospital said after receiving the body. In a video circulated online, the father of Moatsem al-Sharafy is seen weeping over his body on a hospital bed.
The boy’s mother, Safaa al-Sharafy, told The Associated Press that he left to gather firewood so she could cook.
“He went out in the morning, hungry,” she said, tears running down her cheeks. “He told me he’d go quickly and come back.”
Later Wednesday, an Israeli strike hit a vehicle carrying the three Palestinian journalists who were filming a newly established displacement camp managed by an Egyptian government committee, said Mohammed Mansour, the committee's spokesperson.
Mansour said the journalists were documenting the committee’s work at the camp in the Netzarim area in central Gaza. He said the strike occurred about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the Israeli-controlled area.
He said the vehicle was known to the Israeli military as belonging to the Egyptian committee. Video footage showed the charred, bombed-out vehicle by the roadside, smoke still rising from the wreckage.
One of the journalists killed, Abdul Raouf Shaat, was a regular contributor to Agence France-Presse, but he was not on assignment for the news agency at the time of the strike, it said.
“Abdul was much loved by the AFP team covering Gaza. They remember him as a kind-hearted colleague," the news agency said in a statement that called him a “deeply committed journalist” and demanded a full investigation into his death.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, more than 200 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since the war began in 2023, including visual journalist Mariam Dagga, who worked for the AP and other news organizations.
Nearly five months after the strikes on a hospital that killed Dagga and four other journalists, the Israeli military says it is continuing to investigate.
Aside from rare guided tours, Israel has barred international journalists from covering the war. News organizations rely largely on Palestinian journalists in Gaza — as well as residents — to show what is happening.
Nasser Hospital officials also said Wednesday they received the body of a Palestinian woman shot by Israeli troops in the Muwasi area of the southern city of Khan Younis, which is not controlled by the military.
In a separate attack, three brothers were killed in a tank shelling in the Bureij camp, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, where the bodies were taken.
More than 470 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, according to the strip’s health ministry. At least 77 have been killed by Israeli gunfire near a ceasefire line that splits the territory between Israeli-held areas and most of Gaza’s Palestinian population, the ministry says.
The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts.
The first phase of the October ceasefire that paused two years of war between Israel and Hamas militants focused on the return of all remaining hostages in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian detainees and a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces in Gaza.
The bodies of all but one hostage have been returned to Israel. Ran Gvili, a 24-year-old police officer known as Rani, was killed while fighting Hamas militants during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack that started the war. His relatives on Wednesday called again on the government and U.S. President Donald Trump to ensure the release of his remains.
“We need to continue to amplify Rani’s voice, explain about him, talk about him, and explain to the world that we, the people of Israel, will not give up on anyone,” his mother, Talik Gvili, said. She told the AP the family still doesn't "really know where he is.”
Hamas said Wednesday it has provided “all information” it has on Gvili's body to the ceasefire mediators, and accused Israel of obstructing search efforts in areas it controls in the Gaza Strip.
The ceasefire also allowed a surge in humanitarian aid into Gaza, mainly food. But residents say shortages of blankets and warm clothes remain, and there is little wood for fires. There’s been no central electricity in Gaza since the first few days of the war.
More than 100 children have died since the start of the ceasefire — including two infants who died from hypothermia in recent days.
Israel’s air force carried out strikes Wednesday on sites in three villages in southern Lebanon that it said were part of the militant Hezbollah group's infrastructure, including weapons storage facilities.
The strikes came after the Israeli military issued warnings to evacuate the areas, including in the southern village of Qennarit, just south of the port city of Sidon.
Drone strikes also hit cars in the villages of Bazouriyeh and Zahrani, killing two people, according to state-run National News Agency.
The strikes were the latest in near-daily Israeli military action since a ceasefire more than a year ago ended the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war. The agreement included a Lebanese pledge to disarm militant groups, which Israel says has not been fulfilled.
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Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.
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