TEL AVIV: Israeli attacks early Sunday killed 18 people in Gaza, including four sheltering in a tent camp for displaced Palestinians in a hospital complex, while a stabbing attack by a Palestinian killed two people in a Tel Aviv suburb.
Tensions have soared after nearly 10 months of war in Gaza and the killing of two senior militants in separate attacks in Lebanon and Iran last week. These killings prompted threats of retaliation from Iran and its allies and raised fears of an even more destructive regional war.
A woman in her 70s and an 80-year-old man were killed in the stabbing, according to Israel's Magen David Adom emergency services and a nearby hospital, and two other men were wounded. Police said the attack was carried out by a Palestinian militant, who was “neutralized”.
The rescuers said the wounded were found in three different places, each about 500 meters apart. Police initially said they were looking for other suspects but later ruled out more than one perpetrator.
Israel has been bracing for retaliation after the killing of a senior Hezbollah commander in an attack in Lebanon and Hamas' top political leader in an attack in Iran's capital last week. Both targeted killings were linked to the ongoing war in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas' attack on Israel on 7 October.
In Gaza, an Israeli strike earlier on Sunday hit a tented camp of displaced Palestinians in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, killing four people, including a woman, and injuring others, Gaza's health ministry said.
An Associated Press journalist filmed men rushing to the scene to help the injured and retrieve bodies, while also trying to put out the fire.
The Israeli military said it targeted a Palestinian militant in the attack, which it said caused secondary explosions, “indicating the presence of weapons in the area.”
The hospital in Deir Al-Balah is the main medical facility in central Gaza, and thousands of people have taken shelter there after fleeing their homes in the war-torn territory. A separate attack on a home near Deir Al-Balah killed a girl and her parents, according to the hospital.
Another strike flattened a house in northern Gaza, killing at least eight people, including three children, their parents and their grandmother, according to the ministry. Three more people were killed in an attack on a vehicle in Gaza City, according to the Civil Defense – the first operations operating under the Hamas-run government.
Palestinian militants in Gaza fired at least five projectiles at Israeli communities near the border on Sunday, without causing casualties or damage, the military said.
An Israeli attack on a school in Gaza City on Saturday killed at least 16 people and injured another 21, according to Gaza's health ministry, which announced the toll on Sunday. Israel's military, which regularly accuses Palestinian militants of taking cover in civilian areas, said it struck a Hamas command center.
Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians, but the military rarely comments on individual attacks, which often kill women and children. Gaza's Ministry of Health makes no distinction between civilians and militants in its compilations.
Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took around 250 people hostage in their surprise attack into southern Israel last October.
Israel's massive offensive launched in Gaza has killed at least 39,550 Palestinians, according to the territory's health ministry, which did not say how many were militants. Heavy airstrikes and ground operations have caused widespread destruction and displaced the vast majority of Gaza's 2.3 million people, often multiple times.
Hezbollah has regularly exchanged fire with Israel along the Lebanese border since the start of the war, in what the militant group says is aimed at easing pressure on its other Iran-backed ally, Hamas. The continuous strikes and counter-attacks have increased in severity in recent months, raising fears of an even more destructive regional war.
More than 590 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank since the war began in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Most have been killed during Israeli raids and violent protests. Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war, and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state.
