By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Maayan Lubell
CAIRO/JERUSALEM, Jan 31 (Reuters) – Israel pounded Gaza on Saturday with some of its most intense airstrikes since the October ceasefire, killing more than 30 people including three girls from one family, in attacks on houses, tents and a police station, Palestinian health officials said.
The Israeli military said it was responding to a breach of the ceasefire the previous day, in which its troops had identified eight gunmen emerging from a tunnel in Rafah, an area in southern Gaza controlled by Israeli forces under the truce.
It had targeted commanders, weapons caches and manufacturing sites belonging to Palestinian militant group Hamas and its ally, Islamic Jihad, the military said.
Hamas, which retains control of just under half of Gaza where nearly all its more than 2 million residents live mainly in makeshift tents and damaged buildings, said Israel had violated the truce. It did not say whether any of its members or sites were struck in Saturday’s attacks.
On Sunday, Israel is due to reopen the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt under U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war.
The war began after Hamas-led gunmen attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Israeli officials have said the war could resume if Hamas does not lay down its weapons.
FIGHTERS STILL IN TUNNELS
Israeli warplanes bombed the Sheikh Radwan police station west of Gaza City, killing 13 people, including five officers, police in Gaza said. Rescue teams were searching for more casualties at the site, said the Hamas-run police.
Other airstrikes hit at least two houses in Gaza City, in northern-central Gaza, and a tent encampment sheltering displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis further south, local officials said.
Video footage from Gaza City showed charred, blackened and destroyed walls at an apartment in a multi-storey building, and debris scattered inside it and outside on the street.
Samer al-Atbash said the bodies of his three small nieces had been found in the street.
“They say ‘ceasefire’ and all. What did those children do? What did we do?” he said.
The Gaza civil defence rescue service put Saturday’s death toll at 32.
Israel said that in Friday’s encounter with fighters in Rafah its soldiers killed three and arrested a fourth, described as a Hamas commander. Hamas did not comment on the incident.
Dozens of its fighters have been trapped in tunnels under Rafah since the ceasefire and some have since been killed in clashes with Israeli forces.
HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE KILLED SINCE CEASEFIRE
Violence has repeatedly shaken the ceasefire. Israeli fire has killed over 500 people, most of them civilians according to Gaza health officials, and Palestinian militants have killed four Israeli soldiers, according to Israeli authorities.
The two sides have traded blame over truce violations, even as Washington presses them to proceed to the next phases of the ceasefire deal, meant to end the conflict for good.
The next phase of Trump’s Gaza plan calls for resolving complex issues such as Hamas disarmament, which the group has long rejected, further Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the deployment of an international peacekeeping force.
Reuters reported on Monday that Hamas is seeking to incorporate its 10,000 police officers into the new U.S.-backed Palestinian administration for Gaza, a demand likely to be opposed by Israel.
(Additional reporting by Dawoud Abu Elkas in Gaza City, Nuha Sharf in Jerusalem and Menna Alaa El Din in Cairo; Writing by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Timothy Heritage)
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