DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 103 people overnight and into Sunday, hospitals and medics said, and prompted the main hospital in northern Gaza to close as Israel intensifies its war in the territory that, after more than 19 months, shows no signs of abating.
More than 48 people were killed in airstrikes in and around the southern city of Khan Younis, some of which hit houses and tents sheltering displaced people, according to Nasser Hospital. Among the dead were 18 children and 13 women, hospital spokesperson Weam Fares said.
In northern Gaza, a strike on a home in the built-up Jabaliya refugee camp killed nine people from a single family, according to the Gaza health ministry's emergency services. Another strike on a family's residence, also in Jabaliya, killed 10, including seven children and a woman, according to the civil defense, which operates under the Hamas-run government.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the overnight strikes. Israel blames civilian casualties from its operations on Hamas because the militant group operates from civilian areas.
The bloodshed comes as Israel ramps up its war in Gaza with a new offensive named “Gideon's Chariots,” in which Israel says it plans to seize territory, displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to Gaza's south and take greater control over the distribution of aid.
Israel's new offensive
Israel says the new plan is meant to ramp up pressure on the militant Hamas group to agree to a temporary ceasefire on Israel's terms — one that would free Israeli hostages held in Gaza but wouldn't necessarily end the war. Hamas says it wants a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and a pathway to ending the war as part of any new ceasefire deal.
Israel had said it would wait until the end of U.S. President Donald Trump's visit to the region before launching its new offensive, saying it was giving a chance for efforts to bring about a new ceasefire deal. Trump did not visit Israel on his trip, which wrapped up on Friday.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said his negotiating team in the Qatari capital, Doha, was “working to realize every chance for a deal,” including one that would bring about an end to the fighting in exchange for the release of all the remaining 58 hostages, Hamas' exile from Gaza and the disarmament of the Palestinian territory.
Hamas has refused to leave Gaza or disarm.
Israel shattered a previous 8-week ceasefire in mid-March, launching fierce airstrike that killed hundreds. Days before the end of that ceasefire, Israel also halted all imports into Gaza, including food, medicine and fuel, deepening a humanitarian crisis and sparking warnings of an increasing risk of famine in the territory — a blockade that continues.
Israel says that move is also meant to pressure Hamas.
The war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 251 others. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Strikes pound Gaza
In northern Gaza, parts of which have been flattened by Israel's onslaught, at least 43 people were killed in multiple strikes, according to first responders from the health ministry and the civil defense. Gaza City's Shifa Hospital said among the dead, 15 were children and 12 were women.
In Jabaliya, a built-up refugee camp in northern Gaza, 10 people, including seven children and a woman were killed, according to the civil defense, which operates under the Hamas-run government. Among the dead were two parents and their three children and a father and his four children, it said.
Health officials said Sunday that fighting around the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza and an Israeli military “siege” prompted it to shut down.
The hospital was the main medical facility in the territory's war-wrecked north, after northern Gaza’s previous main hospital, Kamal Adwan, was forced to stop serving Palestinians last year because of Israeli strikes, as was a second facility, Beit Hanoun Hospital.
The Israeli military said troops were “operating against terror infrastructure sites in northern Gaza,” including in the area adjacent to the Indonesian Hospital, without providing more details.
Israel has repeatedly targeted hospitals in its war against Hamas, pointing to what it says are the group's activities in and around the facilities. Human rights groups and U.N.-backed experts have accused Israel of systematically destroying Gaza’s health care system.
In central Gaza, at least 12 people were killed in three separate strikes, hospitals said. One strike in the Zweida town killed seven people, including two children and four women, according to according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the town of Deir al-Balah. The second hit an apartment in Deir al-Balah, killing two parents and their child, the hospital said. In Nuseirat camp, a strike hit a house and killed two people, said the camp’s Awda hospital,
Nasser Hospital said it struggled to count the dead because of the condition the bodies were brought in.
Houthi rebels launch missile at Israel
As the war in Gaza grinds on, the conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen has escalated.
The Israeli military said it intercepted a Houthi missile launched at the country early Sunday, which set off air raid sirens in multiple parts of the country.
The rebels said they fired two ballistic missiles — including a hypersonic one — towards Israel's main airport near Tel Aviv, whose grounds earlier this month were struck by a Houthi missile.
“The operation successfully achieved its goal, thanks to Allah, and caused millions of occupying Zionists to rush to shelters," said Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree.
Israel was left out of a U.S. deal to halt attacks on Houthi targets in Yemen in exchange for a stop to their strikes on U.S. shipping vessels in the Red Sea. On Friday, Israel struck Yemen for the eighth time since the war in Gaza began in response to the Houthi attacks.
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Magdy reported from Cairo and Goldenberg from Tel Aviv, Israel,.
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Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Wafaa Shurafa, Samy Magdy And Tia Goldenberg, The Associated Press
