Israeli strikes across Gaza kill at least 26 people

Nine Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli air strike on a police station in northern Gaza, health officials and first responders say.

Several other people were also wounded when missiles hit the market area of Jabalia town. Video footage showed crowds gathered around the remains of a flattened building.

The Israeli military said it struck a “command-and-control centre” for Hamas and its ally Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Jabalia that was being used to plan attacks.

At least 17 other people were reportedly killed elsewhere in Gaza on Thursday.

They included a family of six – a couple and their four children – whose home in the northern Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood of Gaza City was bombed, according to the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency.

A relative, Nidal al-Sarafiti, said the family had been asleep at the time of the strike.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) identified the man who was killed as Ali al-Sarafiti, who it said was a member of the armed group and a former prisoner who was jailed for 13 years in Israel after being convicted over an attempted suicide attack.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Palestinian media also said three displaced people were killed when their family tent was hit near Nuseirat, in central Gaza, and that two children died in a strike on another tent in the southern Khan Younis area.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says at least 1,978 people have been killed since Israel resumed its offensive against Hamas on 18 March following the collapse of a two-month ceasefire.

Israel says it is putting military pressure on Hamas to release the 59 hostages it is still holding, 24 of whom are believed to be alive.

It has also blocked all deliveries of humanitarian aid and other supplies to Gaza for seven weeks, which the UN says is “further depriving people of the means for survival and undermining every aspect of civilian life”.

The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

More than 51,300 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s health ministry.

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