Israeli airstrikes killed at least 13 Palestinians, including a senior Islamic Jihad commander, in northern and southern Gaza on Sunday, according to Palestinian medical sources and eyewitnesses, after Israel accused resistance factions of violating the ceasefire agreement.
The Israeli occupation army claimed it carried out three separate strikes after identifying what it described as armed fighters operating near its troops along the so-called “yellow line” in northern Gaza. It called the incident a “blatant ceasefire violation .”
In its statement on Saturday evening, the occupation army said armed resistance members emerged from an underground opening and advanced toward a troop position, where surveillance aircraft tracked them until they took cover beneath the rubble of a house previously hit in an earlier strike.
The occupation army said it attacked the five fighters from the air, killing two of them, and was pursuing the remaining three, describing the incident as a “blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement,” according to the statement.
Hours after midnight, Israeli troops fired heavy artillery in northern Gaza and east of Gaza City and Khan Younis, according to three eyewitnesses who spoke to Al Manassa. The shelling focused on buildings previously hit along the “yellow line,” and several explosions were heard from the detonation of booby-trapped robots in the north.
Israeli aircraft targeted a group of Qassam Brigades members, the military wing of Hamas, in central Khan Younis at dawn, killing five of them on the spot. Their bodies arrived at Nasser Medical Complex in pieces, according to a medical source who spoke to Al Manassa.
An eyewitness told Al Manassa that a group of Qassam Brigades members had been stationed in the Abu Humaid area in central Khan Younis, adding, “It’s not the first time. Almost every night there are young men securing the area against undercover forces or armed groups affiliated with the occupation.”
He said the occupation hit them with a single missile, then prevented ambulances and residents from reaching the area to recover them. “A quadcopter came and started firing around the site until they made sure the young men were dead, then it withdrew.”
It took about 20 minutes to confirm the five men were dead, as drones hovered, fired, and monitored their movement before withdrawing and allowing residents to retrieve the victims.
At the same time as the Khan Younis strike, five other young men were killed in a second Israeli attack that hit another resistance point in Jabaliya in northern Gaza. An eyewitness told Al Manassa that residents were able to retrieve the five victims and take them to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza.
A medical source told Al Manassa that the bodies arrived in pieces after being directly hit by an aerial warhead missile.
On Sunday morning, the occupation army assassinated Islamic Jihad’s Al-Quds Brigades leader Sami Al-Dahdouh, in a direct aerial strike with a warhead missile while he was traveling on the road south of Gaza City.
A family source told Al Manassa, requesting anonymity, that the leader was killed in a direct Israeli strike, while three other passersby were wounded and taken to the hospital for treatment.
According to the latest tally issued by Gaza’s Health Ministry, the death toll in Gaza has reached 72,061 since the start of the assault on October 7, 2023, with 171,715 wounded.
