Israeli airstrikes continued in Gaza for a second straight day on Sunday, killing at least eight Palestinians, despite US President Donald Trump’s announcement of a breakthrough in efforts to implement last year’s Gaza ceasefire agreement TurkicWorld reports via arabnews.
Palestinian health officials said Israeli warplanes carried out separate strikes in Gaza City and Deir Al-Balah.
In one attack near the central Gaza Strip, a man and his wife were killed and several others were wounded when an Israeli military helicopter struck an apartment, a civil defense spokesman said.
An elderly man and a child were killed in another attack on an apartment west of Gaza City, and three people, including a child, were targeted when a strike hit another apartment northwest of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
Authorities reported earlier Saturday that eight other people had been killed in strikes that damaged a hospital’s medical supplies and targeted a rooftop.Trump said on Thursday there had been a breakthrough after Hamas agreed to disarm under a US-backed initiative to implement the ceasefire agreement reached last year in Egypt. On Friday, Trump’s Board of Peace published a 15-point roadmap setting out the final steps for implementing the agreement.
The roadmap has yet to be implemented. Hamas has said it will hand over its weapons for storage only after Israel halts military operations and withdraws its forces in line with last year’s agreement. An Israeli official told Reuters there would be no withdrawal from the military’s current positions unless Hamas undergoes “genuine disarmament.”
Hamas said Friday it had agreed to a plan championed by Trump that includes provisions for handing over its weapons and the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not commented publicly on the initiative, while National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has called it unacceptable and said Israel should continue assassinating Hamas leaders.
Former senior Fatah official Mohammed Dahlan, who is based in the United Arab Emirates, said in a Facebook post that Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a senior adviser involved in the US initiative, had told him he was working with the Israeli side to stop attacks on Gaza.
Dahlan said contacts with the US were continuing to ensure the agreement was fully implemented, adding that its success now depended on Israel fully ending its daily attacks on Gaza.
Reuters has reached out to the US State Department for comment on Dahlan’s remarks. There was no immediate comment from Israel.
