Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 21 Palestinians, local health authorities said on Monday, as Israeli forces operated in Rafah near the border with Egypt, escalating a new week-long aerial and ground offensive.
The building of of the surgery department at Nasser Hospital is damaged in the aftermath of an Israeli strike, according to Gaza Health Ministry, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, March 24, 2025. Reuters/Hussam Al-Masri
Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 21 Palestinians, local health authorities said on Monday, as Israeli forces operated in Rafah near the border with Egypt, escalating a new week-long aerial and ground offensive.
Health officials said Israel has killed nearly 700 Palestinians since it resumed attacks on Gaza last Tuesday, ending weeks of relative calm after a ceasefire in January. It said the deaths included at least 400 women and children.
Islamist group Hamas said several of its senior political and security officials had also been killed.
Israel says it resumed its military operations to force Hamas to release the remaining hostages it is holding in Gaza.
It says it does its best to reduce harm to civilians and has questioned the death toll by health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave.
Israel's Defence Minister said his country was fighting against Hamas and not Gaza civilians.
"But when Hamas fights in civilian dress, from civilian homes, and from behind civilians, it puts civilians in danger and they pay a horrible price. That is why we are urging Gazans to evacuate combat zones," Katz said on X.
Hamas denies using the civilian population and property for military purposes.
In Rafah, the municipality said thousands of people were trapped inside the Tel Al-Sultan area, where the Israeli military had sent some of its forces.
"Contacts with the neighborhood are cut off completely and the fate of (people) is unknown. Families are trapped among the ruins, with no water, no food, no medicine, amid a total collapse of healthcare services," it said in a statement.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said 50,000 residents remained trapped in Rafah.
The Israeli military said troops had encircled Tel Al-Sultan to dismantle "terror infrastructure sites and eliminate terrorists in the area."
Palestinian officials on Sunday put the death toll from nearly 18 months of conflict at over 50,000.
Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after Hamas fighters stormed southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Maayan Lubell
An Israeli precision strike hit a residential apartment building in Hazmieh - a predominantly Christian neighborhood east of Beirut - Monday afternoon, killing at least one person in what the IDF described as a targeted hit on a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' elite Al-Quds Force.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he had given orders to postpone any military strikes against Iranian power plants for five days, hours ahead of a deadline that threatened further escalation in the conflict now in its fourth week.
Israeli fighter jets struck the Dalafa Bridge twice Monday afternoon, targeting one of South Lebanon's most strategically significant crossings, a span over the Litani River that connects the districts of Hasbaya and Marjeyoun in the eastern border zone to the regions of Jezzine, Western Bekaa, Chouf and Sidon.
To make this website run properly and to improve your experience, we use cookies. For more detailed information, please check our Cookie Policy.
Necessary cookies enable core functionality. The website cannot function properly without these cookies, and can only be disabled by changing your browser preferences.