Qatar warns of ‘dangerous escalation’ after new Israeli strikes on Gaza
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Fresh Israeli air strikes hit Gaza on Thursday, killing four people, as Qatar warned that the renewed attacks could jeopardise the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
The strikes came a day after one of the deadliest episodes in Gaza since the truce took effect on October 10. Israel also carried out several attacks on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, despite a nearly year-long ceasefire there.
The Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis said four people were killed in Thursday’s early strikes.
Gaza’s civil defence agency, which operates under Hamas, initially reported three dead. The hospital said three victims from one family, including a one-year-old girl, died in an attack on a home east of Khan Yunis. Another person was killed in a strike on Abasan al-Kabira, also east of Khan Yunis.
A source from Gaza’s Hamas-run interior ministry, who did not want to be named, said artillery fire continued in the Khan Yunis area.
Qatar, a key mediator in the conflict, condemned the latest attacks. It called the “brutal” Israeli strikes “a dangerous escalation that threatens to undermine the ceasefire agreement”.
Residents in Gaza expressed fear and frustration, saying the situation felt unchanged despite the truce.
The Israeli military acknowledged a strike east of the “yellow line”, the boundary its troops have pulled back behind as part of the US-brokered ceasefire.
Israel has conducted multiple attacks on what it says are Hamas positions during the truce. According to Gaza’s health ministry, more than 312 Palestinians have been killed in these strikes. Wednesday’s attacks alone killed 27 people, the civil defence agency said.
Hamas appealed to mediators, including US President Donald Trump, to intervene.
The war began after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which killed 1,221 people. Israel’s response has killed at least 69,546 people in Gaza, according to health ministry figures that the UN considers reliable.
Israel also launched strikes in southern Lebanon on Wednesday. The military said it targeted Hezbollah weapons storage sites and accused the group of trying to rebuild its capabilities.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came under criticism from Damascus and others in the region after visiting Israeli troops stationed in a buffer zone inside Syria.