Deadly Israeli strikes in Gaza continue into Thursday, with 32 killed in past 24 hours

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Israeli airstrikes killed five people and wounded 18 others in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday, local health authorities said.

Medics said that one strike on a house in Bani Suhaila, a town just east of Khan Younis, killed three people, including a baby girl, and wounded 15 others, while another killed a man and wounded three others in the nearby town of Abassan.

Israel's military confirmed the strikes but said it was not aware of casualties. Hamas and Israel accused each other again of violating an increasingly fragile near-six-week-old truce.

Later on Thursday, Nasser Hospital officials said a fifth Palestinian was killed by Israeli gunfire, also in Abassan.

Gaza's Health Ministry said at least 32 people have been killed in the past 24 hours, including 12 children and eight women — the highest toll since Oct. 29, when at least 100 people were killed.

On Wednesday, Israel said it struck targets across the enclave after members of the Palestinian militant group fired on its troops.

A man sits next to the body of a Palestinian who was killed overnight in Israeli strikes, according to medics, at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. (Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters)

Hamas called the attacks a dangerous escalation and urged Arab mediators, Turkey and the United States, which brokered the ceasefire, to intervene.

In a statement later Thursday, Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem accused Israel of changing markings that define areas Israel still occupies, in violation of the agreed-upon maps, which keeps Israel in control of over 50 per cent of the enclave's areas.

Residents told Reuters they saw that in Shejaia suburb, in eastern Gaza City, saying yellow barricades marking areas still under Israel's control had been moved 100 meters westward.

As of Thursday evening, the Israeli army could be seen expanding its controlled zones and forcing residents out of the area of Al-Sha'af, east of Gaza City, according to a freelance journalist working for CBC News.

There was no immediate Israeli comment on the positioning of the markings.

WATCH | CBC News reporter takes a look at Gaza's yellow line:The CBC's Crystal Goomansingh crossed into northern Gaza as part of an embed with the Israel Defence Forces. Here’s what she saw from the outskirts of Gaza City, behind the yellow line — the boundary to which Israeli forces agreed to retreat under the ceasefire plan with Hamas.There is no ceasefire, Palestinians say

In Gaza City's Zeitoun suburb, where at least 10 people were killed on Wednesday in a building that used to house displaced families, Palestinians sifted through the wreckage to salvage furniture and belongings, as rescue workers searched for any further victims.

"They say there is a ceasefire but I doubt this. Day by day, they say there is a ceasefire — this is completely untrue," Akram Iswair said Thursday.

"Missiles struck the displaced, poor citizens. What can we, our women and our families do?” he told Reuters.

The Oct. 10 ceasefire in the two-year Gaza war has eased the conflict, enabling hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to return to Gaza's ruins. Israel has pulled troops back from city positions and aid flows have increased.

WATCH | U.S. mediators meet with Israeli officials earlier this month to discuss truce:U.S. mediators, including President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, have met Israel's prime minister with attention turning to the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal and the immediate problem of a standoff over a group of Hamas fighters still holed up in tunnels.

But violence has not completely halted. Hamas has been seeking to reassert itself, some are concerned about a de facto partition of the territory and conditions are dire. Palestinian health authorities say Israeli forces have killed 312 people in strikes on Gaza since the truce.

Israel says three of its soldiers have been killed since the ceasefire began and it has targeted scores of fighters.

The war in Gaza began after Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and seized 251 hostages in an attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 69,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, health officials in Gaza say.

Under the terms of the truce, Hamas released all 20 living hostages held in Gaza in return for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and wartime detainees held by Israel.

Hamas also agreed to hand over the remains of 28 dead hostages in exchange for the bodies of 360 Palestinian militants killed in the war. The remains of 25 hostages have so far been handed over.

Israel has returned 330 bodies of Palestinians, according to the territory's Health Ministry.

Report accuses Israel of war crimes in West Bank

A Human Rights Watch report published Thursday said Israel’s expulsion of tens of thousands of Palestinians from three West Bank refugee camps in early 2025 amounts to war crimes and crimes against humanity. The rights group called for urgent international measures to hold Israeli officials accountable and stop further abuses.

It said about 32,000 residents of Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams camps were forcibly displaced by Israeli forces during "Operation Iron Wall" in January and February. The displaced have been barred from returning and hundreds of homes were demolished, said the group's 105-page report, titled "All My Dreams Have Been Erased."

"Ten months after their displacement none of the family residents have been able to go back to their homes," said Melina Ansari, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who worked on the report, speaking to Reuters on Wednesday.

The Israeli military said in a statement to Reuters on Wednesday that it needed to demolish civilian infrastructure so that it could not be exploited by militants. It did not say when residents could return.