Israeli fire kills four people in Gaza, medics say

Israeli strikes and gunfire killed at least four people in the Gaza Strip in separate incidents on Thursday, health officials in the enclave said. In Gaza City, a strike on a car killed at least one person, medics said. They earlier said there had been two deaths. A crowd gathered around the burning wreckage, as orange-vested emergency crews sprayed it with water, photos from the scene showed. Other strikes killed a Palestinian man on a bike in the southern city of Khan Younis and a man near Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, and gunfire killed a woman near the Jabalia refugee camp, in the north, the medics added. Israel’s military said it had struck Hamas militants in Khan Younis, Nuseirat and Gaza City, but that it was not aware of the reported incident in Jabalia. The Hamas-led Interior Ministry in Gaza said an Israeli airstrike killed a non-commissioned officer and wounded another officer from the drug control police department after hitting their vehicle while returning from an assignment in Tel al-Hawa neighborhood. Israel, which says the Hamas militant group has been rearming and launching attacks in violation of a year-old ceasefire, has stepped up strikes on the group in recent weeks. Hamas has denied trying to carry out attacks or rebuild its arsenal and accuses Israel of undermining the Gaza peace deal. Last year’s US-brokered ceasefire calls for eventual reconstruction of the territory. But little progress has been made as negotiators have failed to agree terms for Hamas to disarm and Israel to withdraw its troops. Israeli airstrikes have continued. At least 1,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire, according to the territory’s health officials, while Israel says four soldiers have been killed. Palestinian authorities say more than 74,000 people have been killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza, launched after Hamas-led fighters killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.