An Israeli warplane hit the popular Al-Baqa Café without warning while it was packed with women and children, patron Ali Abu Ateila said. “All of a sudden, the place shook like an earthquake,” he told Associated Press. Emergency chief Fares Awad said dozens were wounded, many critically.
The Israeli military said on Tuesday it struck "several Hamas terrorists" in northern Gaza.
Two more strikes on a Gaza City street killed 15 people, while a separate attack near the town of Zawaida killed six, hospitals said. The café, one of the few businesses still open after 20 months of war, had become a refuge where residents could find internet access and charge phones.
Israel mounted some of its heaviest bombardments in weeks as Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, a close aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, headed to Washington after U.S. President Donald Trump urged the sides to “make the deal in Gaza.”
On the ground, the army ordered new evacuations from large areas of northern Gaza, sending families fleeing again.
In the south, Israeli forces shot dead 11 Palestinians returning from an aid hub run by the Israeli- and U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF) near Khan Younis, medics said. Separate shootings killed one person near a GHF site in Rafah and another at the Netzarim corridor, which bisects Gaza. Ten more people died when troops opened fire at a UN warehouse in the north, the Health Ministry’s ambulance service added.
Monzer Hisham Ismail said artillery shells targeted evacuees near Khan Younis, while Yousef Mahmoud Mokheimar said troops in tanks first fired warning shots, then “shot at us indiscriminately,” wounding him and killing a rescuer.
The Israeli military said it was reviewing the incidents. It has previously said it fires warning rounds at people who move suspiciously or come too close to soldiers during aid distributions.
Israel wants the GHF to replace UN-coordinated relief, accusing Hamas of diverting supplies, a charge the United Nations rejects. The army said it had added fences, signs and new routes to improve access.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says the war has killed more than 56,000 Palestinians, over half women and children.
Israel’s ongoing campaign in Gaza began after Hamas gunmen killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel and took 251 hostages on October 7, 2023; roughly 50 captives are thought still dead or in captivity.
On Friday, Israeli news outlet Haaretz reported that the IDF has opened a criminal inquiry into mounting evidence that troops fired on Palestinian civilians queuing for food in Gaza.
Last year, a UN report has found that Israel’s military actions are consistent with genocide. The Israeli government has repeatedly denied that the war effort in Gaza could be equated to genocide.
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Source: CNN, Associated Press, BBC, The Guardian, Reuters