Israel cuts off access to main Gaza highway after launching deadly airstrikes
Around 600 people have been killed since Tuesday, according to tallies from Gaza officials
Israeli strikes killed at least 58 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip overnight and into Thursday, according to three hospitals. The strikes hit multiple homes in the middle of the night, killing men, women and children as they slept.
Hours later, the Israeli military restored a blockade on northern Gaza, including Gaza City, that it had maintained for most of the war. It warned residents against using the main highway to enter or leave the north and said only passage to the south would be allowed on the coastal road.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians returned to what remains of their homes in the north after a ceasefire took hold in January. Israel resumed heavy strikes across Gaza on Tuesday, shattering the truce that had facilitated the release of more than two dozen hostages. Israel blamed the renewed fighting on Hamas because the militant group rejected a new proposal that departed from their signed agreement.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military also said it intercepted a missile launched by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels early Thursday before it reached Israeli airspace, as air raid sirens and exploding interceptors were heard in Jerusalem. No injuries were reported.
It was the second such Houthi attack since the United States began a new campaign of airstrikes against the rebels earlier this week.
U.S. strikes, which began on Saturday over the Houthis' attacks against Red Sea shipping vessels the past 18 months, have killed at least 31 people.
'Another tough night'
One of the Israeli airstrikes on Gaza early Thursday hit the Abu Daqa family's home in Abasan al-Kabira, a village just outside of Khan Younis near the border with Israel. It was inside an area the Israeli military ordered evacuated earlier this week, encompassing most of eastern Gaza.
The strike killed at least 16 people, mostly women and children, according to the nearby European Hospital, which received the dead. Those killed included a father and his seven children, as well as the parents and brother of a month-old baby who survived along with her grandparents.
"Another tough night," said Hani Awad, who was helping rescuers search for more survivors in the rubble. "The house collapsed over the people's heads."
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the latest strikes.
The military says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it is deeply embedded in residential areas.
Attacks intensify, with no sign of new talks
More than 400 Palestinians were killed on Tuesday alone, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
On Wednesday, Israeli ground troops advanced in Gaza for the first time since a ceasefire took hold in January, seizing part of a corridor separating the northern third of the territory from the south.
Israel, which has also cut off the supply of food, fuel and humanitarian aid to Gaza's roughly two million Palestinians, has vowed to intensify its operations until Hamas releases the 59 hostages it holds — 35 of whom are believed dead — and gives up control of the territory.
The U.S. administration under Donald Trump, which took credit for brokering the ceasefire, says it fully supports Israel.
Hamas has said it will only release the remaining hostages in exchange for a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, as called for in the ceasefire agreement they reached in January after more than a year of mediation by the United States, Egypt and Qatar.
A temporary first phase of the ceasefire ended at the start of this month. Hamas wants to move to an agreed second phase, under which Israel would be required to negotiate an end to the war and withdrawal of its troops, and Israeli hostages held in Gaza would be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners.
Israel has offered only a temporary extension of the truce, cut off all supplies to Gaza and says it is restarting its military campaign to force Hamas to free remaining hostages.
The resumption of airstrikes has sent Palestinian residents again fleeing for their lives from homes they had begun to reinhabit among the ruins of the devastated enclave.
The war started after Hamas militants attacked Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people including several Canadian citizens while taking more than 250 hostages, by Israeli government tallies.
More than 49,000 Palestinians have been killed in the ensuing conflict, according to Gaza's health authorities, with the enclave reduced to rubble.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israeli-airstrikes-gaza-1.7488423
