• Eight women, 13 children among 120 Palestinians killed by Israel since Iran war paused on April 8
• Israeli strikes kill 22 Lebanese in fresh attacks

CAIRO: Israel has escalated its attacks in Gaza and Lebanon since halting its joint bombing with the US against Iran, redirecting its fire back on the ruined Palestinian enclave and south Lebanon.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 120 Palestinians, including eight women and 13 children, were killed in Gaza since the US-Israeli war against Iran was paused on April 8 — 20 per cent more than in the five weeks prior when Israel was flying sorties over Iran.

In Lebanon, a series of Israeli strikes on Wednesday killed 22 people, the Lebanese health ministry said, as conflict between Hezbollah and Israel triggered by US-Israeli attack against Iran, continued.

Conflict monitor ACLED, which tracks Israeli attacks in Gaza, said in a monthly report for April that Israel had carried out 35 per cent more attacks last month than in March.

The increase in Israeli strikes on Gaza is a further sign of stalled progress under US President Donald Trump’s plan to halt the war there and begin reconstruction.

“The war is still ongoing,” said Lafi Al-Najjar, 36, a blind Palestinian, one of whose sons was killed on April 28 in an Israeli attack.

“It stopped in the announcement, but in reality and on the ground, the war has not stopped,” said Najjar, whose family have been living in a tented camp in the ruins of Khan Younis, once Gaza’s second-largest city.

The Israeli military did not immediately provide comment on the reasons for its stepped-up strikes in Gaza. But four Israeli defence officials said the military had warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in recent weeks that Hamas has been tightening its grip, rebuilding its forces and making weapons.

Some 850 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since the October ceasefire, according to figures that do not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

Israeli strikes kill 22 in Lebanon

In Lebanon, the health ministry announced that 22 people were killed in a series of Israeli strikes on Wednesday on the eve of a third round of US-mediated talks between Lebanon and Israel.

The ministry said six people “including three children and two women” were killed in the town of Arab Salim, while another child was killed in a strike on Harouf and three more people “including two children” were killed in Roumin, all in south Lebanon.

Israel’s attacks on Wednesday included three drone strikes targeting vehicles well beyond the main theatre of conflict in the south, on the coastal highway some 20 km south of Beirut, security sources in Lebanon said.

The health ministry said those strikes killed eight people, including two children.

A fourth strike killed one person near the southern city of Sidon, 40 km from Beirut, it said.

Three more people were killed in Israeli airstrikes on cars in three locations further south in Tyre district, the ministry said.

In response, Hezbollah announced new attacks on Israeli forces in the south, including several using kamikaze drones.

More than 10 weeks into the war triggered by the joint US-Israeli attack against Iran, Hezbollah confirmed that the commander of its elite Rizwan force was killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs last week.

Published in Dawn, May 14th, 2026