At least ten people died after Israeli attacks on a refugee camp in Gaza, according to officials citing two sources. An Israeli airstrike and tank shelling killed six Palestinians, including two women and a girl, in Gaza City on Sunday, health officials reported. A separate strike on a residential property in Nuseirat camp killed four: a couple, their 10-year-old son, and a 15-year-old neighbor, with the woman pregnant with twins, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital stated.
Al Jazeera's journalist Mohammed Wishah was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza. Witnesses said Wishah was travelling in a vehicle along the coastal road west of Gaza City when hit by an Israeli drone missile. The Israeli military alleged Wishah was a 'Hamas terrorist' and said it carried out the strike because he posed a threat to its forces, while the IDF confirmed targeting Wishah, accusing him of being a key terrorist in Hamas' rocket and weapons production and planning attacks against IDF troops. Al Jazeera and Hamas have previously denied Wishah was affiliated with Hamas, and Al Jazeera condemned the killing as a deliberate and targeted crime and a violation of international laws. Reporters Without Borders said Wishah was one of over 220 journalists killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in two and a half years.
Pro-Israel Palestinian militias have launched raids, assassination, and abduction operations inside Hamas-controlled parts of Gaza in recent months, according to major media reports citing 23 sources. The militias are based in eastern Gaza under Israeli control after an October ceasefire and have received logistic support from Israel since last year, the same reports indicate. The most powerful Israeli-backed militias are the Popular Forces, based around Rafah, and the Strike Force Against Terror, east of Khan Younis, both striking into Hamas-controlled territory recently. Israel has tasked militias with security duties in its controlled zone and deployed armed men from the Popular Forces at the Rafah crossing to Egypt after it partially opened last month.
Clashes broke out near a school when members of an Israel-backed militia tried to remove suspected Hamas members, according to witness accounts to AFP. At least 10 Palestinians were killed in Israeli air strikes and fighting between Hamas and an Israel-backed militia in central Gaza, local sources reported. Strikes targeted Hamas security personnel who clashed with militia members east of Maghazi refugee camp, according to major media reports from two sources. Witnesses said militia set up a checkpoint east of Maghazi, came under attack from Hamas, triggering clashes, and Israeli drones intervened with strikes on Hamas personnel.
Israeli strikes in Gaza have averaged around 10 per day over the last five months and continued during bombing campaigns in Iran and Lebanon, according to major media reports citing 23 sources. At least 16 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by airstrikes since the outbreak of war with Iran on 28 February, health officials stated. Health authorities said six people were killed and four injured by an Israeli airstrike on al-Mawasi area in western Khan Younis early on Sunday. Israeli shelling and drone strikes killed at least five people and wounded 11 others in Gaza on Friday, Palestinian and Israeli officials confirmed. The latest bloodshed unfolded in central Gaza’s Maghazi refugee camp and the southern city of Rafah, according to research from two sources.
Seventeen months after the war began and five months after a ceasefire, airstrikes are still killing civilians and the humanitarian situation remains dire, according to major media reports citing 23 sources. Over 2 million people are confined to about a third of Gaza's territory, mostly in makeshift tents and damaged buildings under Hamas control, according to major media reports from two sources. Cold temperatures and rain have lingered into spring, soaking mattresses and flooding floors in displacement camps, the same reports note. Displaced children attend classes in crowded tents by volunteer teachers, facing harsh weather, resource shortages, and security risks.
Since the ceasefire took effect in October, Israeli strikes and military operations have killed at least 492 Palestinians and injured 1,356 others, health authorities in Gaza reported. Over 72,200 Palestinians have been killed in the war triggered by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack, which killed over 1,200 and took over 250 hostage, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The US-brokered ceasefire has been in place for more than three months, though both Israel and Hamas accuse each other of repeated violations, research from two sources indicates. Washington announced earlier this month that the agreement had entered its second phase, intended to bring a definitive end to the conflict.
Israel's military states that it will investigate the incident involving clashes near a school. The Israeli military said its troops remain deployed in accordance with the ceasefire agreement and would continue operating to counter threats. The Israeli army claimed that the attacks targeted what it called Hamas members across the Gaza Strip.
Three Palestinians were killed in a clash with settlers in the West Bank on Sunday, bringing recent deaths to six, according to major media reports from two sources. The Israeli military responded to reports of settlers attacking Palestinians near Khirbet Abu Falah, with two killed by gunfire and one by suffocation likely from tear gas. At least three Palestinian women were killed and eight injured after missile debris hit a beauty salon in Beit Awwa, West Bank, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported, revising the death toll from four to three women. The debris hit shortly after the Israeli military said Iran fired missiles towards it, which it was intercepting.
Israeli forces shot and killed third-grade student Ritaj Rihan while she was attending a class in a tent in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, health and education officials stated. The education ministry said the shooting caused a strong psychological shock to her classmates. Hamas oversees a police force that maintained public security after seizing power in 2007, but it melted away during the war and reappeared after the October ceasefire, according to major media reports citing 23 sources. A separate strike on a police vehicle in Zawaida killed eight police officers, including Colonel Iyad Ab Yousef, the Hamas-run Interior Ministry reported.
Israel still occupies more than half of Gaza under a ceasefire since October, with nearly all buildings levelled in the Israeli-controlled sector, according to major media reports from two sources. Rafah is the site of Gaza’s only border crossing that does not lead into Israel, serving as a vital lifeline for humanitarian aid, research from two sources indicates. Palestinian authorities have demanded the immediate reopening of the Rafah crossing, a key provision of the second phase of the US-brokered ceasefire agreement. Palestinians say Israeli forces have been moving yellow concrete markers westward into unoccupied territory, which Israel denies.
The UN human rights office warned of a pattern of ill-treatment, abuse and humiliation of returnees by Israeli forces and armed Palestinians allegedly backed by the Israeli military. Hamas's military wing spokesperson rejected disarmament talks before Israel fulfills commitments under Trump's peace plan. Israel does not allow foreign media, including BBC News, to send journalists into Gaza, according to major media reports from two sources.
The exact terms of the US-brokered ceasefire agreement and the extent of compliance by both sides remain unclear, as does the specific evidence the IDF has to support its claim that Mohammed Wishah was a Hamas terrorist involved in weapons production. The current status of the Rafah crossing and the reasons for its incomplete reopening are also unknown, despite Palestinian demands.