Israel resumes Gaza bombing, kills over 100, wounds hundreds

NT Bureau/Agencies

Gaza City: Israeli warplanes have attacked targets in Gaza after the end of a seven-day ceasefire, with strikes across much of the region that health officials in the territory said had killed 109 people.

Loud, continuous explosions were heard coming from Gaza and black smoke billowed from the territory.

Mediator Qatar said Friday that efforts are ongoing to renew an Israel-Hamas cease-fire and expressed “deep regret” over the resumption of Israeli bombardments.

Over 100 hostages were freed during the seven-day truce, most of whom appear physically well but shaken. Israel says 115 adult men, 20 women and two children are still held hostage.

The 240 Palestinians released under the cease-fire were mostly teenagers accused of throwing stones and firebombs during confrontations with Israeli forces.

The deal that began Nov. 24 ended after a week and multiple extensions, despite international pressure for the truce to continue as long as possible.

Weeks of Israeli bombardment and a ground campaign have left more than three-quarters of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents uprooted, leading to a humanitarian crisis.

Israel’s military announced on Friday morning that it was dividing the entirety of Gaza into dozens of numbered blocks as a prelude, it said, to demanding targeted local evacuations in the crowded south of the strip before planned bombing.

It dropped leaflets on to Gaza with a QR code to a website with a map of all the areas and geolocating people within them. Humanitarian groups said on Friday that a plan to divide and attack the south, where 2 million people were sheltering, risked stretching Gaza to breaking point.

“There is fundamentally nowhere for people to go,” said Danila Zizi, the Palestine country manager for the charity Humanity and Inclusion.

Gaza’s ministry of health reported that 109 people had been killed. Dozens more had been wounded, mostly women and children, a spokesperson added.

End of ceasefire 'nightmare' for people in Gaza: UN

The resumption of fighting between Israel and Hamas is "the nightmare that everyone utterly feared," the UN says. The renewed clashes are "catastrophic for the people of Gaza," James Elder, a spokesman for Unicef told the BBC.

"There was a strike 50m to 100m from here. There are ambulances there, I see the plumes of smoke," he told the BBC's Newsday programme from a hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

Mr Elder said Nasser hospital - which he described as the biggest functioning one in Gaza - was "wildly overflowing with children and people with wounds of war recovering from the last attack".

IN A NUTSHELL

• Dozens of Palestinians killed since Israel resumed attacks on Gaza after expiration of truce, according to health officials.
• lIsraeli army drops leaflets telling people in parts of already bombarded and densely populated southern Gaza to evacuate to nearby areas, signalling an expanding offensive.
• Mediator Qatar says efforts to renew the lapsed truce are continuing.
• More than 15,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7. In Israel, the official death toll stands at about 1,200.