Five children among 19 killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza, hospital officials say

Israeli strikes in Gaza have killed at least 19 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to hospital officials.

Israel pledged to continue the strikes, saying that it was responding to a militant attack on Israeli soldiers that seriously wounded one.

Among the Palestinians killed were five children, including a five-month-old and a baby just 10 days old, as well as seven women and a paramedic, said hospital officials.

They are the latest Palestinians in Gaza to die since a ceasefire deal, which has been punctuated by deadly Israeli strikes, came into effect on October 10 last year.

More than 530 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli in that time, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

The escalating Palestinian death toll has rocked the US-backed truce and caused Palestinians in the strip to say it does not feel like the war has ended.

“The genocidal war against our people in the Gaza Strip continues,” said Dr Mohamed Abu Selmiya, director of Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, in a Facebook post. “Where is the ceasefire? Where are the mediators?”

An Israeli military official told the Associated Press that Israel would continue striking the strip.

Since the ceasefire took hold, Israel’s military has defended deadly strikes by saying it is responding to Hamas violations or militant attacks on its soldiers.

The military says four soldiers have been killed since the ceasefire took hold.

Mediators have condemned the attacks and Hamas has called them violations of the deal.

On Wednesday, Israeli troops fired on a building in the Tuffah neighbourhood in north Gaza, killing at least 11 people, most from the same family, said Shifa Hospital, which received the bodies.

The dead included two parents, their 10-day-old girl, her five-month-old cousin and their grandmother.

Israel’s military said its aircraft and armoured units had returned fire after militants started shooting at troops, badly wounding a reservist soldier who was evacuated to a hospital. Israel called the militant attack a violation of the deal.

After the Tuffah strike, Israeli fire continued across the strip, said hospital officials.

An Israeli strike on a family’s tent in the southern city of Khan Younis killed three people including a 12-year-old boy, said Nasser hospital, which received the bodies.

Tank shelling in Gaza City’s eastern neighbourhood of Zaytoun killed another three Palestinians, according to Shifa Hospital, including a husband and his wife.

A strike on a tent in the Muwasi area of Khan Younis killed at least two people and wounded five others, according to a field hospital run by the Palestinian Red Crescent in the area.

The dead included Hussein Hassan Hussein al-Semieri, a paramedic for the Palestinian Red Crescent who was on duty at the time, said the hospital.

More than 71,800 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, according to the Gaza health ministry, which does not say how many were fighters or civilians.

The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts.