CAIRO/GAZA: Israeli planes and tanks pounded areas in eastern Gaza on Thursday, Palestinian residents and witnesses said, a day after Israel said it remained committed to a US-backed ceasefire despite launching more lethal bombardments in the territory.
Witnesses said Israeli planes carried out 10 airstrikes in areas east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, while tanks shelled areas east of Gaza City in the north. No injuries or deaths were reported.
The Israeli military said it carried out “precise” strikes against “terrorist infrastructure that posed a threat to the troops” in the areas, which Israel still occupies.
The strikes were the latest test of the fragile ceasefire that came into effect on October 10 in the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
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“We’re scared that another war will break out, because we don’t want a war. We’ve suffered two years of displacement. We don’t know where to go or where to come,” said a displaced man, Fathi Al-Najjar, in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
At the tent encampment where Najjar spoke, girls and boys were filling plastic bottles with water from metal containers placed on the side of the street, and women cooked food for their families using clay-made firewood ovens.
Return of deceased hostages
Under the ceasefire accord, Hamas released all living hostages in return for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and wartime detainees, while Israel pulled back its troops and agreed to halt its offensive.
Hamas also agreed to hand over the remains of all 28 dead hostages.
Smoke billowing during an Israeli strike on Gaza Thursday. (AFP)
The militant group handed over two more bodies it said were of deceased Israeli hostages on Thursday.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the two bodies had been received by Israeli forces via the Red Cross in Gaza and will be transported into Israel for identification.
Hamas agreed to hand over the remains of all 28 dead hostages in exchange for 360 Palestinian militants killed in the war. Up to Thursday it had handed over 15 bodies.
The recovery and handover of bodies of hostages in Gaza has been one of the obstacles to US President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan, with Israel claiming that Hamas has been delaying the handover, an accusation Hamas denies.
From Tuesday into Wednesday, Israel retaliated for the death of an Israeli soldier with bombardments that Gaza health authorities said killed 104 people.
Witnesses in Gaza said they did not see strikes on Thursday outside of the area Israel controls.
Women and children killed
Israel says the soldier was killed in an attack by gunmen on territory within the so-called “yellow line” to which its troops withdrew under the ceasefire. Hamas has rejected the accusation.
The Israeli military issued a list of 26 militants it said it had targeted during the bombardment earlier this week, including one it said was a Hamas commander who participated in the October 7, 2023 assault on Israel that ignited the war.
The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said Israel’s list was part of a “systematic campaign of misinformation” to cover up “crimes against civilians in Gaza.”
The Gaza health ministry said 46 children and 20 women were among the 104 people killed in the airstrikes.
Sources close to international efforts to sustain the ceasefire said US and regional mediators swiftly intervened to restore calm as Israel and Hamas traded blame.
Strikes raise doubts in Gaza
People in the Gaza Strip, most of which had been reduced to wasteland, feared the tenuous truce would fall apart, saying that the last two days, in which they were deprived of sleep, felt like a revival of the two-year war.
“The situation is extremely difficult. The war is still ongoing, and we have no hope that it will end, because of the conditions we are witnessing in the life we are living,” said Mohammed Al-Sheikh.
The war has displaced most of Gaza’s more than two million people, some of them several times. Many haven’t yet returned to their areas, fearing they could soon be displaced once again.
Gaza health authorities say 68,000 people are confirmed killed in the Israeli campaign and thousands more are missing. Israel launched the war after Hamas-led fighters attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and bringing 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
