Israeli air strikes on Gaza kill at least five people: Report

Israeli attacks across Gaza have killed ⁠at least five people, according to health officials.

Medics said on Monday that two people were killed when an Israeli air strike hit a crowd near ⁠a municipal public park in Gaza City, an area packed with displaced families. Several people were reported to have been wounded.

A separate air strike hit a vehicle in the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood in western Gaza City, killing at least three people, health officials said.

The Israeli military claimed the two attacks targeted Hamas fighters ‌without providing evidence.

Relatives and friends paid their respects to two of the five men killed on Monday at al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest medical facility, before carrying their bodies to a cemetery to bury them.

Israel has escalated its attacks across the Gaza Strip in recent days despite a “ceasefire” agreed in October. An Israeli strike on Deir el-Balah in central Gaza on Sunday killed two Palestinians, including a three-year-old, while Israeli attacks killed at least four people on Saturday.

“There is no ceasefire. There has not been one good day in Gaza since October 7, [2023],” Amjad Abu Abdo, a relative of one of the people killed in the attacks on Monday, told the Reuters news agency. “I swear, we do not sleep from ⁠the sound of drones. You sleep scared of being hit.”

Since the “ceasefire” between Israel and Hamas took effect, 1,313 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli attacks on Gaza, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said.

Meanwhile, 4,000 to 5,000 Palestinians remain missing and are believed to be dead under rubble in Gaza, the Palestinian Centre for Missing and Forcibly Disappeared Persons said on Saturday.

The Israeli army reported five deaths in its ranks since October as well as the death of one civilian contractor.

Since Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023, nearly 73,500 Palestinians have been confirmed killed in Gaza and nearly 174,500 injured, most of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry.