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At least 55 Palestinians have been killed in overnight Israeli air strikes in Gaza, the Hamas-run health ministry has said.
Hours later Israel’s military said it intercepted three rockets which Hamas’s armed wing said it fired at Tel Aviv in response.
It comes after Israel resumed its bombing campaign and ground operations in the territory this week, with air strikes having already killed more than 430 people over the past two days, according to the health ministry.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Thursday it had started a ground operation in northern Gaza. There had been a lull in large-scale military action since January when a ceasefire began.
Israel resumed attacks on Tuesday as talks to extend the deal failed to progress, warning they would intensify until Hamas released the remaining hostages.
Israel says Hamas is still holding 59 hostages, 24 of whom are believed to be alive.
IDF spokesperson Col Avichay Adraee said Hamas had fired three rockets from southern Gaza. One was intercepted, while the other two fell in an “open area”, he added in a post on X.
The Israeli military said earlier on Thursday it had begun “targeted ground activities” to create what it called a “partial buffer between the north and south” in Gaza. It called the action a “limited ground operation”.
Col Adraee said forces were deployed up to the centre of a strip known as the Netzarim Corridor which divides northern and southern Gaza.
Meanwhile, five staff members of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency Unrwa were among those killed over the “past few days”, the agency’s chief Philippe Lazzarini said in a post on X.
“They were teachers, doctors and nurses,” he added, warning that “the worst is yet to come” amid the ongoing ground invasion.
On Wednesday the UN said that one of its workers had been killed and five others injured after its compound in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza was damaged. It said the circumstances of the incident were unclear.
Gaza’s health ministry blamed an Israeli strike, while Israel’s military said it did not attack the compound.
Elsewhere, Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired a ballistic missile at Israel on Thursday, aiming for Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, the Iran-backed group’s military spokesperson said.
No injuries were reported and the IDF said the missile was stopped before entering Israel.
On Tuesday, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it had “resumed combat in full force” and any ceasefire negotiations would now take place “under fire”.
Israel and Hamas have failed to agree how to take the ceasefire beyond the first phase, which expired on 1 March.
Hamas did not agree to a renegotiation of the ceasefire on Israel’s terms, although it offered to release a living American hostage and four hostages’ bodies as mediators tried to keep the ceasefire going.
Israel blocked all food, fuel and medical supplies entering Gaza at the beginning of March in order to put pressure on Hamas. It accused Hamas of commandeering the provisions as part of its strategy against Israel, though without providing evidence.
The war was triggered by Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 in which about 1,200 people, mainly civilians, were killed and 251 other taken hostage. Twenty-five Israeli and five Thai hostages were released alive during the first phase of the ceasefire.
Israel responded to the October attack with a massive military offensive, which had killed more than 48,500 Palestinians, mainly civilians, before Israel resumed its campaign, the Hamas-run health ministry says. Israel’s offensive has also caused huge amounts of destruction to homes and infrastructure.
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