Israeli military strikes have killed at least 14 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, the enclave's Health Ministry said Sunday, as Arab and U.S. mediators work to shore up a fragile cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.
Palestinian officials say dozens of people have been killed by Israeli fire despite the Jan. 19 truce that halted large-scale fighting in Gaza.
Gaza's Health Ministry said most of the latest deaths took place on Saturday when an Israeli airstrike on northern Gaza's Beit Lahia killed at least nine Palestinians, including three journalists.
Several were critically injured as the strike hit a car, with casualties inside and outside the vehicle, health officials told Reuters.
Witnesses and fellow journalists said the people in the car were on a mission for a charity called al-Khair Foundation in Beit Lahia, and they were accompanied by journalists and photographers when the strike hit them. At least three local journalists were among the dead, according to Palestinian media.
The Israeli military initially said it had struck two "terrorists" operating a drone that posed a threat to its forces and several people who collected the drone equipment.
In another statement, it named six men that it said were members of Palestinian resistance groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad who it said had been killed in the incident.
The incident underscores the fragility of the Jan. 19 cease-fire agreement that halted large-scale fighting in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian health officials say dozens of people have been killed by Israeli fire despite the truce.
Salama Marouf, the head of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, denied the army's allegations.
"The team was made of civilians and worked in an area near a shelter on a mission sponsored by a charity. They were not in a prohibited area and didn't pose any danger of any kind to the occupation army," Marouf said in a statement.
At least four more Palestinians were killed in separate Israeli strikes on Saturday, the Gaza health officials said.
An Israeli drone had fired a missile at a group of Palestinians in the town of Juhr Eldeek in central Gaza on Sunday, killing a 62-year-old man and wounding several others, the medics said. Several others were hurt when an Israeli drone fired a missile towards a group of people in Rafah, they added.
The Israeli military said it was not familiar with the reported drone strikes.
Hamas accused Israel in a statement of attempting to renege on the cease-fire agreement, putting the number of Palestinians killed since Jan. 19 at 150.
It urged mediators to compel Israel to move ahead with the implementation of the phased cease-fire deal, blaming Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the impasse.
Responding to some of the incidents reported by Gaza medics, the Israeli military claimed its forces have intervened to thwart threats approaching its forces on the ground near where forces operate.
Since the first phase of the cease-fire expired on March 2, Israel has rejected opening the second phase of talks, which would require it to negotiate over a permanent end to the war, the main demand of Hamas.
The incidents coincided with a visit by Hamas' exiled Gaza chief, Khalil al-Hayya, to Cairo for further cease-fire talks aimed at resolving disputes with Israel that could risk a resumption of fighting.
Persistent bloodshed in Gaza underscores the fragility of the three-stage ceasefire agreement mediated by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States, which have stepped in to hammer out a deal between Israel and Hamas over how to proceed.
Israel wants to extend the cease-fire's first phase, a proposal backed by U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff. Hamas says it will resume freeing hostages only under the second phase that was due to begin on March 2.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said on Saturday that negotiators had been instructed to be ready to continue talks based on the mediators' response to a U.S. proposal for the release of 11 living hostages and half of the dead captives.
On Friday, Hamas said it had agreed to free an American-Israeli dual national if Israel begins the next phase of cease-fire talks toward a permanent end to the war, an offer Israel dismissed as "psychological warfare."
Hamas said it had made the offer to release New Jersey native Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old soldier in the Israeli army, after receiving a proposal from mediators for negotiations on the second phase.
The war was triggered by the Hamas incursion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which caused 1,200 deaths and took 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel's subsequent genocidal war on Gaza has killed more than 48,500 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, reduced much of the territory to rubble and led to accusations of genocide and war crimes.
