Individuals participate in a protest demanding the speedy launch of hostages held by Hamas within the Gaza Strip, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, March 22, 2025.
Ohad Zwigenberg/AP
cover caption
toggle caption
Ohad Zwigenberg/AP
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli strikes throughout the southern Gaza Strip killed a minimum of 19 Palestinians in a single day into Sunday, together with a Hamas political chief and several other girls and kids. Residents mentioned tanks had superior into an space of the southern metropolis of Rafah because the army ordered it evacuated.
The army ordered individuals to go away the already closely destroyed Tel al-Sultan neighborhood on foot alongside a single path to Mawasi, a sprawling space of squalid tent camps. Israel ended its ceasefire with Hamas final week when it launched a shock wave of airstrikes that killed a whole lot of Palestinians.
Late Saturday, Israel’s Cupboard authorized a proposal to arrange a brand new directorate tasked with advancing the “voluntary departure” of Palestinians in step with U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal to depopulate Gaza and rebuild it for others. Palestinians say they don’t need to go away their homeland, and rights teams have mentioned the plan might quantity to expulsion in violation of worldwide regulation.
Israeli Protection Minister Israel Katz mentioned the brand new physique can be “subject to Israeli and international law” and coordinate “passage by land, sea and air to the destination countries.”
In Rafah on Sunday, Palestinian males, girls and kids may very well be seen strolling alongside a mud highway and carrying their belongings of their arms, a recurring scene in a warfare that has pressured most of Gaza’s inhabitants to flee throughout the territory, typically a number of occasions.
“It’s displacement under fire,” mentioned Mustafa Gaber, a neighborhood journalist who left Tel al-Sultan along with his household. In a video name, he mentioned a whole lot of individuals have been fleeing as tank and drone hearth echoed close by. “There are wounded people among us. The situation is very difficult,” he mentioned.
Mohammed Abu Taha, one other resident who fled, mentioned many individuals have been unable to evacuate due to the shock incursion in a single day. He additionally mentioned his sister and her household have been sheltering in a faculty in an space of Rafah surrounded by Israeli forces.
At the very least 2 households amongst these killed in southern Gaza
Two hospitals in southern Gaza mentioned they’d obtained 17 our bodies from strikes in a single day, together with a number of girls and kids. The toll didn’t embody the Hamas official and his spouse.
The European Hospital mentioned the useless included 5 kids and their mother and father killed in a strike in Khan Younis. One other household — two women and their mother and father — have been killed in a separate strike on the southern metropolis. The Kuwaiti Hospital mentioned it obtained the our bodies of a lady and baby killed in one other strike.
Hamas individually mentioned that Salah Bardawil, a member of its political bureau and the Palestinian parliament, was killed in a strike in Mawasi that additionally killed his spouse. Bardawil was a well known member of the group’s political wing who gave media interviews over time.
The Palestinian Pink Crescent emergency service mentioned Israeli forces have been stopping its ambulances from responding to strikes in Rafah and that a number of of its medics had been wounded.
There was no speedy remark from the army.
In a separate growth, Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, who’re allied with Hamas, launched one other missile at Israel in a single day and into Sunday, setting off air raid sirens. The Israeli army mentioned the projectile was intercepted, and there have been no experiences of casualties or harm.
The Houthis resumed their assaults on Israel, portraying them as an act of solidarity with the Palestinians, regardless of latest U.S. strikes focusing on the Yemeni rebels.
Ceasefire in tatters after Israeli strikes
The ceasefire that took maintain in January paused 15 months of heavy preventing ignited by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 assault into Israel.
Twenty-five Israeli hostages and the our bodies of eight others have been launched in change for a whole lot of Palestinian prisoners, Israeli forces pulled again to a buffer zone, permitting a whole lot of 1000’s of individuals to return to what stays of their houses, and there was a surge in humanitarian assist.
The edges have been supposed to start negotiations in early February on the following section of the truce, by which Hamas was to launch the remaining 59 hostages — 35 of whom are believed to be useless — in change for extra Palestinian prisoners, a long-lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal.
These talks by no means started, and Israel backed out of the ceasefire settlement after Hamas refused Israeli and U.S.-backed proposals to launch extra hostages forward of any talks on a long-lasting truce.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 individuals, largely civilians, and took 251 hostage within the Oct. 7 assault. A lot of the captives have been launched in ceasefire agreements or different offers, whereas Israeli forces rescued eight alive and recovered dozens of our bodies.
Israel’s offensive has killed a minimum of 49,747 Palestinians, in accordance with Gaza’s Well being Ministry, which says girls and kids make up greater than half the useless however doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in its data. Israel says it has killed round 20,000 militants, with out offering proof.
The offensive has destroyed huge areas of Gaza and at its peak had displaced round 90% of the inhabitants. Israel sealed off the territory of two million Palestinians from meals, gasoline, medication and different provides earlier this month to strain Hamas to vary the ceasefire settlement.
