Israeli strikes on southern Gaza kill 26, including Hamas political leader

Israeli strikes across the southern Gaza Strip killed at least 26 Palestinians overnight into Sunday, including a senior Hamas political leader and several women and children.

Residents said tanks had advanced into an area of the southern city of Rafah as the military ordered it evacuated.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said the total number of Palestinians killed in Gaza since the start of the Israel-Hamas war has now passed 50,000 after Israel ended the ceasefire last week with a wave of strikes that have killed nearly 700.

The military ordered people to leave the already heavily destroyed Tel al-Sultan neighbourhood on foot along a single route to Mawasi, a sprawling area of squalid tent camps.

Israel ended its ceasefire with Hamas last week when it launched a surprise wave of airstrikes that killed hundreds of Palestinians.

Late on Saturday, Israel’s Cabinet approved a proposal to set up a new directorate tasked with advancing the “voluntary departure” of Palestinians in line with US President Donald Trump’s proposal to depopulate Gaza and rebuild it for others.

Palestinians say they do not want to leave their homeland and rights groups have said the plan could amount to expulsion in violation of international law.

Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said the new body would be “subject to Israeli and international law” and co-ordinate “passage by land, sea and air to the destination countries”.

Palestinians could be seen walking along a dirt road and carrying their belongings in their arms, a recurring scene in a war that has forced most of Gaza’s population to flee, often multiple times.

“It’s displacement under fire,” said Mustafa Gaber, a local journalist who left Tel al-Sultan with his family.

In a video call, he said hundreds of people were fleeing as tank and drone fire echoed nearby.

“There are wounded people among us. The situation is very difficult,” he said.

Mohammed Abu Taha, another resident who fled, said many people were unable to evacuate because of the surprise incursion overnight.

He also said his sister and her family were sheltering in a school in an area of Rafah surrounded by Israeli forces.

Hamas said that Salah Bardawil, a member of its political bureau and the Palestinian parliament, was killed in a strike in Mawasi that also killed his wife.

Bardawil was a well-known member of the group’s political wing who gave media interviews over the years.

Hospitals in southern Gaza said they had received another 24 bodies from strikes overnight, including several women and children.

The European Hospital said five children and their parents were killed in a strike on the southern city of Khan Younis. Another family — two girls and their parents — were killed in a separate strike.

The Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said it received the bodies of two children and their parents who were killed in a strike on their home. Two other children are still under the rubble, according to the hospital.

The Palestinian Red Crescent emergency service said Israeli forces were preventing its ambulances from responding to strikes in Rafah and that several of its medics had been wounded.

There was no immediate comment from the military.

In a separate development, Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, who are allied with Hamas, meanwhile launched another missile at Israel, setting off air raid sirens.

The Israeli military said the projectile was intercepted, and there were no reports of casualties or damage.

The Houthis resumed their attacks on Israel, portraying them as an act of solidarity with the Palestinians, despite recent US strikes targeting the Yemeni rebels.

The ceasefire that took hold in January paused 15 months of heavy fighting ignited by Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack on Israel.

Twenty-five Israeli hostages and the bodies of eight others were released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, Israeli forces pulled back to a buffer zone, allowing hundreds of thousands of people to return to what remains of their homes, and there was a surge in humanitarian aid.

The sides were supposed to begin negotiations in early February on the next phase of the truce, in which Hamas was to release the remaining 59 hostages — 35 of whom are believed to be dead — in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal.

Those talks never began, and Israel backed out of the ceasefire agreement after Hamas refused Israeli and US-backed proposals to release more hostages ahead of any talks on a lasting truce.

Tens of thousands of Israelis returned to the streets late on Saturday in the latest of several mass protests calling for a deal that returns the hostages.

Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages in the October 7 attack. Most of the captives have been released in ceasefire agreements or other deals, while Israeli forces rescued eight alive and recovered dozens of bodies.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war. The ministry says more than 113,000 have been wounded.

The latest toll announced Sunday includes 673 people killed since Israel ended the ceasefire last week with a surprise wave of airstrikes.

The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its records.