CAIRO: At least 22 Palestinians were killed in Israeli air strikes in Gaza on Saturday, medics said, while the Israeli military claimed it targeted gunmen operating from shelters and aid storages.

At least 10 people were killed in an air strike near the municipality building in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip where people gathered to receive aid, medics said.

Casualties were being carried by foot, on rickshaws and private cars from the site of the attack to the hospital, medics said. The strike killed the head of the Hamas-run administrative committee in central Gaza, Diab Ali al-Jaru, a Hamas source said.

The Israeli military said al-Jaru, who was also the mayor of Deir Al-Balah, was the target of the strike and that he had assisted Hamas fighters. Four more people were killed in a separate strike in the area.

Journalist, woman and her baby among dead; one killed in Lebanon attack

Earlier, Israeli aircraft struck fighters and weapon caches near an aid warehouse, the military said, after gunmen had fired rockets into Israel from there on Friday. Another rocket was fired from Gaza into Israel on Saturday, the military said.

A separate strike in Gaza City on a former shelter housing displaced people targeted Hamas fighters, the military said. At least seven people were killed in that attack, Palestinian medics said, including a woman and her baby.

Journalist killed

A local journalist, Mohammed Baalousha who worked for Dubai Al Mashhad television was killed in a separate airstrike in Gaza City, health officials said. The military was looking into the report, a spokesperson said.

At least 137 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza in more than a year of war, according to The Committee to Protect Journalists.

Meanwhile, clashes between Palestinian security forces and fighters in the occupied West Bank on Saturday killed one man, a medical source told AFP, with Hamas identifying him as a fighter.

Since the conflict began on Oct 7, 2023, Israel has launched an air, sea and land offensive that has killed almost 45,000 people, mostly civilians, according to authorities in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, displaced nearly the entire population and left much of the enclave in ruins.

A fresh bid by Egypt, Qatar and the United States to reach a truce has gained momentum in recent weeks. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Saturday discussed with visiting US officials the efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and prisoner deal, Sisi’s office said.

Lebanon raid

Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli drone strike in the south killed one person on Saturday, the latest deadly raid despite a more than two-week ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

“An Israeli enemy drone strike… killed one person” in Marjayoun district, the health ministry said in a statement. The official National News Agency said a vehicle was hit.

Earlier, the Israeli military said the air force “struck a loaded and ready-to-use launcher aimed at Israel in violation of the ceasefire understandings between Israel and Lebanon”. It did not specify where the strike took place.

A ceasefire came into effect between Israel and Hezbollah on November 27, but both sides have accused the other of repeated violations, with Lebanon reporting multiple deadly Israeli strikes, including five people killed on Wednesday.

On Saturday, the NNA said the “enemy… carried out detonations in the town of Kfar Kila” near the border, also reporting the sound of explosions and automatic weapons fire “from Israeli soldiers” in frontier village Mais al-Jabal.

It said the Lebanese army was inspecting villages and detonating munitions “left behind by the Israeli aggression” in Tyre district.

Under the terms of the truce, the Lebanese army is to deploy in south Lebanon alongside UN peacekeepers as the Israeli army withdraws over a period of 60 days. Hezbollah is required to withdraw its forces north of the Litani river, about 30km from the border, and dismantle its military infrastructure in the south.

Published in Dawn, December 15th, 2024