Israel said Wednesday it was still committed to the US-backed ceasefire in Gaza, despite its day-long bombardment that Gaza health authorities said killed 104 people.Even as the military affirmed it still intended to uphold the truce in the Palestinian enclave, it announced it had carried out another airstrike in the north of Gaza. Medics said two people were killed in that attack.
The killing of an Israeli soldier in Gaza on Tuesday has triggered the worst escalation there since the ceasefire brokered by US President Donald Trump came into effect on October 10 after two years of war.Israel says the soldier was killed in an attack by gunmen on territory within the "yellow line" where its troops withdrew under the truce. Hamas has rejected the accusation.The Gaza health ministry said 46 children and 20 women were among the 104 people killed in the airstrikes.
The Hamas-run Gaza government media office issued a statement saying Israel's list of targets was a product of a "systematic campaign of misinformation, forgery, and lies aimed at distorting the truth and covering up its ongoing crimes against civilians."The Gaza health ministry said 46 children and 20 women were among the 104 people killed in the airstrikes.In Nusseirat in the central Gaza Strip, neighbours said the entire Abu Dalal family had been wiped out in an airstrike that flattened their home overnight.A boy in a wheelchair wailed as the family's bodies in white plastic body bags were loaded into the back of a flatbed truck. Crowds followed as the bodies were driven through the streets to a cemetery.
Despite the bombardments, Trump said the ceasefire was not at risk.The latest flare-up has underscored the stumbling blocks to a lasting peace. Key questions of Hamas disarming, further Israeli troop pullbacks and future governance of Gaza remain unresolved.Displaced Palestinians feared the truce could fall apart."The sounds of explosions and planes made us feel as if war had started again," Ismail Zayda, 40, living in tents in western Gaza City with his 25-member family, told Reuters via a chat app.Under the accord, Hamas released all living hostages in return for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and wartime detainees, while Israel pulled back its troops and halted its offensive.Hamas also agreed to hand over the remains of all dead hostages yet to be recovered, but has said that it will take time to locate and retrieve them.