Tel Aviv: An Israeli attack on Sunday morning killed 18 people in Gaza, including four inside a hospital compound sheltering in a tent camp for displaced Palestinians, while two were killed in a Palestinian stabbing attack in a Tel Aviv suburb.
Tensions have risen since the nearly 10-month war in Gaza and the deaths of two senior militants in separate attacks in Lebanon and Iran last week. The killings brought threats of retaliation from Iran and its allies and raised fears of an even more devastating regional war.
According to Israel's Magen David Adom Rescue Service and a nearby hospital, a 70-year-old woman and an 80-year-old man died in the stabbing, while two other men were injured. Police said the attack was carried out by a Palestinian militant, who had been “defused”.
Rescuers said the injured were found in three different locations, each about 500 meters (yards) apart. Police initially said they were looking for other suspects, but later ruled out the possibility of more than one attacker.
Israel is preparing to retaliate after a senior Hamas commander in Lebanon and a top Hamas political leader were killed in an attack in Iran's capital. Both targeted killings were linked to the ongoing war in Gaza, which began with an October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel.
In Gaza, an Israeli airstrike earlier Sunday struck a tent camp for displaced Palestinians in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, killing four people, including a woman, and wounding others, Gaza's health ministry said.
An Associated Press reporter filmed people rushing to the scene to help the injured and remove bodies as they tried to put out the fire.
The Israeli military said it had targeted a Palestinian fighter in the strike, which it said caused a second explosion “indicating the presence of weapons in the area.”
The hospital in Deir al-Balah is the main medical facility operating in central Gaza, and thousands of people have fled their homes in the war-torn area and sought refuge there. A separate strike on a house near Deir al-Balah killed a girl and her parents, according to the hospital.
Another strike leveled a house in northern Gaza, killing at least eight people, including three children, their parents and grandmother, the ministry said. Another three people were killed in an attack on a vehicle in Gaza City, according to Civil Defense – first responders working under the Hamas-run government.
Palestinian militants in Gaza fired at least five projectiles at Israeli communities near the border on Sunday, causing no casualties or damage, the military said.
At least 16 people were killed and 21 others wounded in an Israeli attack on a shelter converted into a school in Gaza City on Saturday, Gaza's health ministry said on Sunday. Israel's military, which has regularly been accused of harboring Palestinian militants in civilian areas, said it struck a Hamas command center.
Israel says it tries not to harm civilians, but the military often comments on personal attacks that kill women and children. Gaza's health ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants at its length.
Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages in a surprise attack in southern Israel last October.
At least 39,550 Palestinians have been killed in a major offensive launched by Israel in Gaza, according to the territory's health ministry, which would not say how many were insurgents. Heavy airstrikes and ground operations have caused widespread destruction and displaced the vast majority of Gaza's 2.3 million people, often multiple times.
Hezbollah has regularly traded fire with Israel on the Lebanese border since the start of the war, in what the militant group says is aimed at easing pressure on its Iran-backed ally Hamas. A series of strikes and counterstrikes have escalated in severity in recent months, raising fears of an even more devastating regional war.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, 590 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank since the war in Gaza began. Most have been killed during Israeli attacks and violent protests. Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East War, and Palestinians want all three territories for their future state.
