Gaza鈥檚 civil defence agency reported at least 12 people killed Monday in Israeli strikes across the Palestinian territory, where the war triggered by Hamas鈥檚 2023 attack on Israel entered its 19th month.
The latest strikes, part of renewed military operations after a two-month truce, come with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington for talks with US president Donald Trump later on Monday, where the on-going fighting is set to be on the agenda.
An air strike hit a tent used by journalists in a makeshift displacement camp in the southern Gaza Strip, killing two people, said civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal.
Hamas and rescuers said the Israeli strike killed one journalist and wounded nine others, while the Israeli military reported it targeted a militant posing as a reporter.
The journalist is one of at least 12 people killed in Israeli strikes across the Palestinian territory, according to Gaza鈥檚 civil defence agency.
The Hamas government media office said journalist Hilmi al-Faqaawi, who worked for a local news agency, was killed in the attack in the city of Khan Yunis.
Bassal said that nine others, all journalists, were wounded.
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military did not immediately comment on the reported strike.
In central Gaza, Bassal said an Israeli air strike hit three houses in Deir el-Balah city and killed at least seven people.
鈥楽ome people remain trapped beneath the rubble,鈥� the spokesman said.
Deir el-Balah was the subject of an Israeli evacuation order late Sunday, warning residents of imminent attacks in response to a rocket salvo that the military said was fired from the area.
Further north, Bassal said a strike hit 鈥榓 group of civilians鈥� in Gaza City鈥檚 Zeitun neighbourhood, killing three people.
The civil defence spokesman said there was also on-going artillery shelling across Gaza and home demolitions in Rafah, on the territory鈥檚 southern border with Egypt.
Ahead of his Washington visit, Netanyahu said that discussions with Trump would address the Gaza war and efforts to secure the release of hostages seized during Hamas鈥檚 October 7, 2023 attack and still held in the territory.
Israel resumed intense strikes on Gaza on March 18, and the weeks-long ceasefire with Hamas that the United States, Egypt and Qatar had brokered collapsed.
Efforts to restore the truce have so far failed.
According to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, at least 1,391 Palestinians have been killed in the renewed Israeli operations, taking the overall death toll since the start of the war to 50,752.
Hamas鈥檚 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Meanwhile, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said on Monday that 15 medics and rescuers killed by Israeli forces last month in Gaza were shot in the upper body with 鈥榠ntent to kill鈥�.
The killings occurred in the southern Gaza Strip on March 23, days into a renewed Israeli offensive in the Hamas-ruled territory, and have since sparked international condemnation.
Younis Al-Khatib, president of the Red Crescent in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, told journalists in Ramallah that an autopsy revealed that 鈥榓ll the martyrs were shot in the upper part of their bodies, with the intent to kill鈥�.
He called for an international probe into the killings, which the Israeli military has separately announced it was investigating.
鈥榃e call on the world to form an independent and impartial international commission of inquiry into the circumstances of the deliberate killing of the ambulance crews in the Gaza Strip,鈥� Khatib said.
The Israeli military has said its soldiers fired on 鈥榯errorists鈥� approaching them in 鈥榮uspicious vehicles鈥�, with a spokesman later adding that the vehicles had their lights off.
But a video recovered from the cellphone of one of the slain aid workers, released by the Red Crescent, appears to contradict the Israeli military鈥檚 account.
The footage shows ambulances travelling with their headlights on and emergency lights flashing.
Eight staff members from the Red Crescent, six from the Gaza civil defence agency and one employee of the UN agency for Palestinian refugee were killed in the incident.
Their bodies were found buried near the site of the shooting in the Tal al-Sultan area of Rafah city, in what the UN humanitarian office OCHA described as a mass grave.
