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Gaza's civil defence agency said Saturday that Israeli strikes had killed six people over the past 24 hours, the latest bout of violence in the territory against the backdrop of the US-Israeli war with Iran.In a pre-dawn strike Saturday, two policemen and a civilian were killed in the southern city of Khan Yunis, the agency reported.A strike on a group of civilians on Friday evening in eastern Gaza City killed three people, whose bodies were taken to the territory's main Al-Shifa hospital, the agency said.When contacted by AFP, the Israeli military did not offer an immediate response.Violence has continued in the Palestinian territory despite a ceasefire since October 10, and even as Israel continues its air campaign against Iran since February 28.FIVE INJURED IN WEST BANK ATTACKIsraeli settlers injured five Palestinians, including two with gunshot wounds, in a fresh attack against a village in the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian official said Saturday, while the military reported a 'violent confrontation' in the area, AFP reported from Ramallah.Palestinian news agency WAFA said a group of settlers attacked in the area of Rashayda, near the village of Kisan, "firing live ammunition".Musa Abayat, the mayor of the area east of Bethlehem, told AFP that two people were hospitalised with gunshot wounds and three others beaten with sharp objects or hit by stones."The settlers also stole 100 sheep," Abayat said, decrying "daily attacks" by settlers in this part of the West Bank.The Israeli military said there was a "violent confrontation" involving Israeli civilians who fired toward Palestinians."As a result of the incident, an Israeli civilian was injured and evacuated to the hospital for medical treatment," it said in a statement to AFP."Two additional Palestinians were evacuated by the Red Crescent for medical treatment."Israeli police had detained two Israeli civilians who fired their weapons, while three Palestinians were also apprehended, the military added.There has been a spike in deadly settler attacks in the West Bank in recent days, with at least five Palestinians killed since the start of March, according to Palestinian authorities and the UN.Violence more broadly in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has also risen sharply since the October 2023 Hamas storming of Israel triggered the Gaza war. It has continued despite a ceasefire since October 10.Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 1,045 Palestinians, many of them fighters, but also scores of civilians, in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry figures. 

When her children, trembling with fear, ask where the family can go to escape Israel’s continued bombardment in southern Gaza’s Khan Yunis area, Umm Ahmed has no answer. In her small, devastated village near Khan Yunis city, recent Israeli drone and artillery strikes shattered the tenuous sense of peace delivered by a ceasefire that has largely held since October 10. Residents say the strikes have targeted neighbourhoods east of the so-called Yellow Line — a demarcation established under the truce between Israel and Hamas. The Israeli military says its troops are deployed in the area in accordance with the ceasefire framework. More than two years after Hamas’s October 2023 storming of Israel sparked a devastating war, tens of thousands of Gazans still live in tents or damaged homes in these areas, where the Israeli army maintains control and operates checkpoints. Now, many fear being forced from their homes, compelled to move west of the Yellow Line. “We don’t sleep at night because of fear. The bombardments in the east are relentless,” said Umm Ahmed, 40. “My children tremble at every explosion and ask me, ‘Where can we go?’ And I have no answer.” Her home in Bani Suheila has been completely destroyed, yet the family has stayed, pitching a tent beside the ruins. “Staying close to our destroyed home is easier than facing the unknown,” Umm Ahmed said. Crossing the Yellow Line to Al-Mawasi, west of Khan Yunis, is not an option for them. There, makeshift camps stretch as far as the eye can see, housing tens of thousands of Palestinians who fled the fighting. “There is no place left for anyone there, and not enough food or water,” Umm Ahmed said, as Gaza remains trapped in a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. The Israeli military blames continued threats from Hamas fighters for its actions in the area. The war in Gaza began with Hamas’s storming of Israel in October 2023 . Since the war began, more than 70,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The vast majority of Gaza’s more than 2mn residents were displaced during the war, many multiple times. A fragile ceasefire has been in place since October 10, though both sides regularly accuse each other of violations. Under the truce, Israeli forces withdrew to positions east of the Yellow Line. Earlier this month, Israeli army chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir described the Yellow Line as the “new border line” with Israel. “The Yellow Line is a new border line — serving as a forward defensive line for our communities and a line of operational activity,” he said to reserve soldiers in Gaza. For Palestinian officials, the line is seen as a tool for permanent displacement. “The objective is to frighten residents, expel them from their areas, and force them west,” said Alaa al-Batta, mayor of Khan Yunis, denouncing the bombardments as “violations of the ceasefire agreement”. Mahmud Baraka, 45, from Khuzaa, east of Khan Yunis, described constant artillery fire and home demolitions in the area. “It feels like we are still living in a war zone,” he said. “Explosions happen as if they are right next to us. The objective of the occupation is clear: to intimidate us and drive us out, so the region is emptied.” For now, residents feel trapped between bombardment and displacement, uncertain how long they can endure. Despite the danger, Abdel Hamid, 70, refuses to leave his home located north of Khan Yunis, where he lives with his five children. “We will not leave... this is our land,” he said. “Moving would not be a solution, but yet another tragedy.” 

A young Palestinian man was martyred from wounds he sustained during a previous Israeli shelling of the Gaza Strip. Medical sources reported that the young man was martyred as a result of an earlier Israeli shelling of the town of Abasan Al-Kabira, east of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip. Occupation forces stationed in the eastern areas of Gaza City opened heavy fire this morning. The Ministry of Health in Gaza announced Monday that the death toll from the Israeli aggression has risen to 67,869 martyrs and 170,105 injured since October 7, 2023, while many victims remain trapped under the rubble and on the roads, beyond the reach of ambulance and rescue teams. The ceasefire agreement between Hamas and the Israeli entity, reached in Egypt's Sharm El-Sheikh, came into effect last Friday following the withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from populated areas in the Gaza Strip, and the beginning of the return of displaced persons to the northern part of the Strip. This took place as part of the first phase of US President Donald Trump's initiative to end the war on Gaza.

The State of Qatar condemned the Israeli occupation forces' bombing of Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, which resulted in the deaths of innocent, defenseless civilians, and considered it a new episode in the ongoing series of heinous crimes committed by the occupation forces against the brotherly Palestinian people and a flagrant violation of international law.In a statement on Monday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stressed that the occupation forces' targeting of journalists and relief and medical workers requires urgent and decisive international action to provide the necessary protection for civilians and ensure that the perpetrators of these atrocities do not escape punishment.The Ministry also reiterated the urgent need for global solidarity to end the brutal genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, address the catastrophic humanitarian conditions there, and move forward towards achieving a just and sustainable peace in the region, ensuring the establishment of an independent and fully sovereign Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.