Israel launches deadly strikes on Gaza

GAZA/JERUSALEM — Israeli forces carried out attacks in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing at least nine people, including a child and a journalist from Al Jazeera, in the latest violence to rock the Palestinian territory despite a ceasefire.

Israel and Hamas trade near-daily accusations of truce violations and the Gaza Strip remains gripped by bloodshed as progress on permanently ending the conflict remains stalled.

The airstrikes and gunfire killed at least nine people, Reuters reported, citing health officials. Agence France-Presse put the toll at 11.

An Israeli strike killed four Palestinians, including two women and a child, in an apartment building in Gaza City, health officials said. The attack on the building in the Sabra neighborhood destroyed the apartment and wounded several other people, medics added.

The Israeli military said it struck a militant, without elaborating.

Farther north, Israeli forces shot and killed a woman in the town of Beit Lahiya, medics said. An Israeli airstrike killed at least one person and wounded eight others in Khan Younis, south of the enclave.

Later on Saturday, an Israeli airstrike killed three people, medics said, including Ahmed Wishah, a journalist working for Al Jazeera, in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.

Al Jazeera said Wishah, a cameraman, was killed about two months after his brother, Mohammed Wishah, also an Al Jazeera journalist, was killed by the Israeli military.

The Palestinian Journalist Syndicate condemned Wishah's killing on Saturday and called for Israeli leaders to be held accountable for such attacks, which have killed nearly 300 Palestinian journalists since the conflict began in October 2023.

The Israeli military said in a statement that it killed a Hamas militant, who posed a threat and served as an Al Jazeera photojournalist.

An October ceasefire halted major fighting between Hamas and Israel, but a permanent Gaza peace plan remains elusive.

At least 1,012 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect on Oct 10 last year, according to the territory's health ministry.

The Israeli army has reported five deaths in its ranks during the same period.

The two sides remain deadlocked over some key issues. Israel says Hamas must cede power in Gaza, disarm, and play no role in the future governance of the enclave. Hamas links any full disarmament to launching a political track toward establishing a Palestinian state.

Hamas-led fighters killed 1,200 people during their cross-border attack into Israel on Oct 7, 2023, according to Israeli tallies.

The Gaza health ministry said more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since then.

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