In another escalation, Israel kills 20 in airstrikes on sites across Gaza, including family homes

Israel launched a series of airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on Saturday afternoon after the Occupation military claimed that an armed man had crossed into the yellow zone under Israeli control in southern Gaza — a claim a Hamas source speaking to Mada Masr denies.

The wave of strikes killed at least 20 people and injured 83 more in just a few hours, the Gaza Health Ministry said.

Eyewitnesses speaking to Mada Masr said the strikes targeted sites across the strip, from a vehicle in Gaza City to several family homes in the camps and towns of Gaza’s central Deir al-Balah Governorate.

The first strike targeted a vehicle near the Abbas junction west of Gaza City. According to a Mada Masr correspondent, who was nearby at the time, a single missile hit the car, triggering a powerful explosion that killed everyone inside. Flying shrapnel injured several passersby.

An Israeli military radio correspondent said on Saturday that the target of the operation was a senior Hamas official. An Israeli military spokesperson later said they had killed Alaa al-Hadidy, head of the supply and armament division of Hamas's production unit, in one of the strikes.

Hamas has not commented on whether any of its officials were killed in the strikes.

Within less than half an hour, the Israeli military launched several targeted airstrikes across the Gaza Strip.

One strike hit a home belonging to the Khodary family in western Gaza City, killing four people. Two more strikes targeted homes in Nuseirat camp, killing at least ten. Another targeted a family home west of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, killing three and injuring others.

An eyewitness told Mada Masr that one of the strikes on Nuseirat targeted the home of Abdel Rahim Abu Amouna, a fighter who took part in the October 7 operation and whose body Israel had returned last month. His body was difficult to identify as it had been mutilated in the Occupation authorities’ custody.

Israel’s strike on his family home killed three people. The other strike on Nuseirat targeted the Abu Shawish family home.

In Deir al-Balah, eyewitness Emad Khattab said Saturday’s strike hit the Abed family home, which is located in a densely populated area crowded with residents and displaced people. Khattab heard a powerful explosion in the afternoon and, when he rushed outside, he found the house on fire and the wounded scattered across the area, most of them children.

The Israeli military said the series of strikes were in response to an attempted breach of the yellow line east of Rafah in southern Gaza, during which an armed man allegedly opened fire at Israeli forces before being killed.

A source in Hamas told Mada Masr that Israel’s attacks on Saturday constitute yet another clear violation of the ceasefire, stressing that the resistance faction remains committed to the ceasefire agreement. No Hamas fighters had breached the deal, either on their own or on orders from the movement, the source said.

Hamas called on Saturday evening for the ceasefire’s mediators and guarantors to pressure the Occupation to disclose the identity of the armed man it claims fired at its forces.

This, the Hamas source said, is yet another lie by Israel aimed at manufacturing a pretext to breach the agreement.

Hamas issued an official statement on Saturday afternoon, calling for all mediators and the United States’ administration in particular to stop Israel’s violations of the ceasefire.

As well as the wave of attacks on Saturday, Hamas pointed to the Occupation military’s “daily westward advance” beyond the yellow withdrawal line stipulated in the ceasefire, the consequent “the mass displacement of our people,” and the attacks that have killed hundreds since the ceasefire came into effect in early October.

Since the ceasefire came into effect, both parties to the agreement have worked to execute a prisoner exchange deal.

But the exchange has been slow, as Hamas works with international agencies to locate and recover the bodies of Israeli prisoners killed and buried under the rubble during Israel’s two-year genocidal war on the strip.

At the same time, Israel has stalled on its commitment to facilitate the entry of aid and goods into the strip under the deal’s terms, and has repeatedly violated the ceasefire by firing on sites across the enclave on multiple occasions.

Later phases of the deal were to include the questions of Gaza’s civil and security governance and the strip’s reconstruction.

But instead of holding negotiations on the strip’s post-war reality, the United States has gained authorization from the United Nations Security Council to form an international “stabilization force” empowered to enter the strip and undertake Hamas’s disarmament.

The same UNSC resolution permits the US to seize executive authority in Gaza via the Board of Peace.

Palestinian factions have rejected the resolution, saying it subjects the strip to an “international guarantorship” and splits the territories into two distinct parts.