Gaza air strikes follow heaviest rocket fire by Hamas in months

Israel has carried out contemporary air strikes on Gaza after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered retaliation for one of many heaviest barrages of rocket-fire by Hamas in months.

The Israeli army mentioned about half of the ten rockets which have been fired from Gaza late on Sunday landed inside Israel, whereas the rest have been shot down. One particular person was wounded by falling particles, Israeli medics mentioned.

Netanyahu issued the instruction for a “robust response” whereas on his solution to Washington, the place he is because of maintain talks with US President Donald Trump.

The Hamas-run well being ministry in Gaza mentioned on Monday morning that not less than 56 Palestinians had killed there by Israel over the earlier 24 hours.

A Palestinian journalist was killed and 9 others wounded when an air strike hit a tent utilized by native media in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, the Hamas Authorities Media Workplace and the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS) mentioned.

Reuters information company mentioned footage confirmed folks attempting to place out a blaze within the tent which it mentioned was contained in the compound of Nasser hospital.

The useless journalist was recognized by the PJS as Helmi al-Faqaawi of Palestine At present TV.

In a joint assertion, the Israel Protection Forces (IDF) and Shin Guess intelligence company mentioned that they had struck a “Hamas terrorist… who operates below the guise of a journalist and owns a press firm”.

They mentioned the person, Hassan Eslaih, had participated within the 7 October 2023 assault on Israel which triggered the conflict.

The PJS mentioned it “strongly condemned, within the harshest phrases, this appalling bloodbath”. It referred to as on the UN to take motion to cease Israel from “concentrating on your complete Palestinian folks, together with journalists”.

Nasser, which is the biggest hospital nonetheless functioning in Gaza, has been struck a number of occasions by the IDF because the conflict started.

Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of utilizing hospitals as covert bases and for storing weapons, which the group denies.

Earlier, the IDF mentioned it had hit the launcher which fired the rockets at Israel, after ordering residents in a number of districts of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza to evacuate.

Issuing the order, IDF Arabic spokesman Lt Col Avichay Adraee warned that Israel would “launch a extreme strike on any space from which rockets are fired”.

Hamas mentioned it fired the rockets in response to Israeli “massacres of civilians in Gaza”, Reuters information company reported.

Footage from the Israeli metropolis of Ashkelon confirmed flashes within the sky as sirens wailed and an explosion on the backside of a block of flats in the course of the rocket assault on Sunday night time.

The speed and scale of Hamas’s rocket assaults sharply dropped after the primary few months of the conflict, as Israel intensively focused its arsenals and launchers. However the group nonetheless intermittently fires at Israel, in an indication that it nonetheless possesses capabilities.

Israeli air strikes continued in a single day following the assault on the rocket launchers, with the official Palestinian information company Wafa reporting that websites in north, central and south Gaza have been hit.

Efforts to attempt to restore a ceasefire are persevering with, with French President Emmanuel Macron holding talks in Cairo on Monday with Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II.

Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned the Gaza conflict and Israel’s efforts to safe the discharge of the 59 hostages nonetheless being held by Hamas can be on the agenda throughout his talks with Donald Trump on the White Home on Monday.

Israel resumed its army marketing campaign in Gaza final month, blaming Hamas for rejecting a US proposal to increase a ceasefire which had begun in January. Hamas, in flip, accused Israel of abandoning the unique deal which each side had agreed to.

The conflict was triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented assault on Israel on 7 October 2023, by which about 1,200 folks have been killed and 251 others taken again to Gaza as hostages.

Greater than 50,750 Palestinians have been killed within the Israeli offensive since then, based on the Hamas-run well being ministry.