100 Palestinians Killed in Weekend of Israeli Airstrikes on Gaza
Victims include 22 members of one family massacred in their Gaza City home.
Israel Defense Forces bombing killed at least 100 Palestinians including numerous women and children in the Gaza Strip over the weekend, while the IDF also renewed airstrikes on Lebanon as cease-fire talks between senior Hamas and Egyptian officials wrapped up in Cairo without any breakthrough.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Sunday that Israeli strikes killed at least 51 Palestinians over the previous 24 hours. Among the victims were eight people, including three women and two children, killed in an IDF bombing of a tent in Khan Younis; a man and four children slain in another strike on a tent in Deir al-Balah; and at least six people who died when a coffee shop near the Bureij refugee camp was hit.
The ministry said Saturday that at least 49 Palestinians were killed during the preceding 24 hours, including 22 members of the al-Khour family who were sheltering in their Gaza City home when it was bombed.
The IDF said the strike targeted a Hamas militant. Israel's military relaxed rules of engagement after the October 7, 2023 attack to allow an unlimited number of civilians to be killed when targeting a single Hamas member, no matter how low-ranking.
Saed al-Khour, who is grieving the loss of his family, refuted Israel's claim, telling The Associated Press that "there is no one from the resistance" among the victims.
"We have been pulling out the remains of children, women, and elderly people," al-Khour added.
Israel's U.S.-backed 569-day assault on Gaza has left at least 183,800 Palestinians dead, injured, or missing. Nearly all of Gaza's more than 2 million people have been forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened amid a "complete siege" that is cited in an International Court of Justice genocide case against Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are also fugitives from the International Criminal Court, which issued arrest warrants for the pair last year.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces unleashed a wave of bombing attacks in Lebanon in what critics called a blatant violation of a November cease-fire agreement with the resistance group Hezbollah. The IDF bombed targets in southern Lebanon and in suburbs of the capital city of Beirut.
The IDF, which said it warned residents ahead of the Beirut airstrike, claimed it attacked "an infrastructure where precision missiles" were being stored by Hezbollah, without providing any supporting evidence.
Israel says it will continue its assault and siege on Gaza until Hamas releases the two dozen Israeli and other hostages it has imprisoned since October 2023. Hamas counters that it will only free the hostages in an exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, a complete withdrawal of IDF troops from Gaza, and a new cease-fire agreement. Israel unilaterally broke a January cease-fire last month.
A senior Hamas delegation left Cairo late Saturday following days of talks regarding a possible deal for a multi-year truce and the release of all remaining hostages. The head of Israel's Mossad spy agency was also in Qatar earlier this week for separate cease-fire talks. Qatari mediators said they believed there has been "some progress" in both sides' willingness to reach an agreement.
United Nations agencies and international humanitarian groups—many of which have accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war—have warned in recent days of the imminent risk of renewed famine in Gaza as food stocks run out.
"Children in Gaza are starving," the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
said on social media Sunday. "The government of Israel continues to block the entry of food and other basics. [This is a] man-made and politically motivated starvation."
