An Israeli strike on a funeral in the central Gaza Strip killed at least seven people and wounded 22 others on Friday, according to local health officials, in the latest bloodshed to test a ceasefire that has failed to bring lasting calm to the territory nine months after it was signed.
The strike hit mourners gathered at the Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp for the funeral of a Palestinian man killed in an earlier attack that same day, hospital officials said, adding that separate strikes elsewhere in Gaza left five more people dead, including two women.
Israeli Military Says It Targeted Militant Cell
The Israeli military said the strike on the funeral had targeted what it described as a cell belonging to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, and acknowledged that civilians may have been harmed in the attack. It offered no further detail on the intelligence behind the strike or the identities of those it said it was pursuing. In the earlier attack that killed the man being mourned, the military said it had targeted a Hamas militant, again without elaborating on the grounds for the strike.
Hamas condemned the attack on the funeral in unusually blunt terms, with the group’s spokesperson denouncing it as a heinous crime. The strike drew swift criticism from Palestinian officials, who accused Israel of continuing to strike civilian gatherings even as the ceasefire nominally holds.
Ceasefire Holds in Name Only
Israel and Hamas agreed to the ceasefire in October in an effort to end a war that had raged for two years, and the heaviest fighting has indeed subsided since it took effect. But the lull has been punctuated by regular bloodshed: at least 1,123 people have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire began, according to figures kept by the territory’s health ministry.
The ministry, which operates under the Hamas-led government, keeps detailed casualty records that United Nations agencies and independent experts generally regard as reliable, though it does not break down how many of the dead were civilians as opposed to combatants. It has said women and children make up the majority of those killed.
Israel has defended the continued strikes as a response to attacks by militants on its forces stationed in the territory, saying fighters have carried out shooting attacks on Israeli troops and that its military is entitled to retaliate against such violations. Five Israeli soldiers have been killed since the ceasefire took hold, the military has said.
A War That Has Reshaped Gaza
Friday’s violence adds to a death toll that has climbed steadily since the war began after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7th October 2023, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage. Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Gaza has since killed more than 73,264 Palestinians, including those killed since the ceasefire took effect, according to the territory’s health ministry, a toll that has made the conflict one of the deadliest in the region’s modern history and left the ceasefire’s durability in constant doubt.
