Gaza says Israeli strikes have killed at least 40 people across the territory today

LAST UPDATE | 28 Apr

GAZA’S CIVIL DEFENCE agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 40 people across the Palestinian territory today, which has been under an Israeli aid blockade for more than 50 days.

Israel resumed its military campaign in the Gaza Strip on 18 March. A ceasefire agreement that had largely halted the fighting for two months before that collapsed over disagreements between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose 2023 attack triggered the war.

Civil defence official Mohammed al-Mughayyir told news agency AFP that 40 people had been killed since dawn.

They included eight people who were killed in an Israeli strike on the Abu Mahadi family home in Jabalia, in the north of the territory.

“They were sleeping in their homes, feeling safe, when missiles hit… this scene makes the body shiver,” said Abdul Majeed Abu Mahadi, 67, who added that his brother was killed in the attack.

“If a person looked at this scene, they would have seen children, women and elderly men cut into pieces, it makes the heart ache, but what can we do?”

The civil defence agency reported that another 10 people were killed in an Israeli strike on the Al-Ghamari family home in the Al-Sudaniya area northwest of Gaza City.

A strike on the Al-Agha family home killed eight others in an area of Khan Younis in the south, it added.

Fourteen others were killed in four separate strikes across the territory, the civil defence said, including one that hit a tent sheltering displaced people in the Al-Shafii camp, west of Khan Younis.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said today that at least 2,222 people have been killed since Israel resumed strikes, bringing the overall death toll since the war broke out to 52,314.

The Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Militants also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel says its renewed military campaign aims to force Hamas to free the remaining captives.

Hostage families appeal to Trump

Today, Israelis held hostage in Gaza and freed during a recent ceasefire appealed to US President Donald Trump to secure the release of all remaining captives.

The former hostages thanked Trump for his part in reaching the truce with Hamas, which Israel broke in March.

“Several weeks after my return home, on 6 March, I had the honour of meeting President Trump at the White House,” said Naama Levy, one of the four former hostages, speaking at a press conference in Tel Aviv marking Trump’s 100 days in office.

“He welcomed me with genuine warmth and he made me a promise that he would not rest until every last hostage is free,” said Levy.

“Mr President, you achieve what many thought was impossible. You led the deal that brought 38 hostages, including me, home,” she added.

“We, the survivors, know you are a decisive and irreplaceable force saving lives… but the work is not yet done.”

Levy, whose violent capture during the Hamas attack was broadcast live, described being treated “not as a human being, but as a trophy” while in captivity.

Keith Siegel, a US-born Israeli who was abducted from his home in Kfar Aza near the Gaza border, thanked Trump but also said that Washington should “apply pressure, restart negotiations immediately and secure a deal now, before its too late”.

Out of 251 hostages seized during the Hamas attack, 58 remain in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead. Hamas also holds the body of a soldier taken captive in a 2014 war.

The ceasefire that began in January saw the release of 33 Israeli and dual national hostages in exchange for around 1,800 Palestinians in Israeli custody. Five Thai captives were released outside the scope of the truce deal.

Since the mid-March collapse of the ceasefire agreement, several rounds of negotiations with Qatari, Egyptian and US mediators have so far failed to yield a breakthrough.

In a separate statement today, the family of hostage Alon Ohel, 24, said he was in urgent need of medical care.

“Alon is injured. He lost sight in one of his eyes, and today we know that there is a possibility to save his other eye,” said his father, Kobi, proposing the release of all injured hostages in exchange for allowing aid into Gaza — which Israel blocked in early March.

The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, told a summit in Jerusalem later on Monday that the top priority “is let’s get the hostages home and let’s get them home now, every last one of them”.

“President Trump stands for good and not evil, and that’s why he has made it very clear that Hamas has no future in Gaza or anywhere else on this earth.”