According to Al Jazeera’s correspondents on the ground, some of the strikes on Thursday morning targeted buildings in the Bureij camp in central Gaza and in Khan Younis.
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They add to the hundreds of attacks carried out by Gaza’s civil defense as flagrant violations of the fragile seven-week ceasefire.
Additionally, the Israeli military carried out a new wave of raids and arrests throughout the occupied West Bank, including in Qalqilya, Tubas, Hebron, Tulkarem, and Nablus.
According to a local Palestinian Red Crescent official who was quoted by the Wafa news agency, Israeli forces conducted field interrogations and assaulted at least 25 people who needed medical treatment while conducting their raid in Tubas.
Release of additional Palestinian detainees
On Wednesday, the first phase of the Gaza truce came closer to being realized when Israel handed over the bodies of 15 Palestinian prisoners to Gaza authorities. The body of another Israeli captive was also handed over by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad on Wednesday.
The remaining 26 of the 28 captives that were ordered to be transferred have now been returned to Palestinian armed groups after being released from custody.
Hazem Qassem, a spokesman for Hamas, described the most recent handover as evidence of the organization’s “steady commitment to fully finish the exchange process and its ongoing efforts to finalize it despite significant difficulties.”
Israel, on the other hand, has released 345 prisoners’ bodies, many of whom showed signs of torture, mutilation, and execution, for freeing nearly 2, 000 Palestinian prisoners.
However, the ceasefire is still plagued by significant obstacles, including the presence of 20 Hamas fighters who are reportedly being killed along Israel’s border in southern Gaza in the past week in tunnels along the Israeli-occupied side of the yellow line.
On Wednesday, Hamas pleaded with mediators of the ceasefire to pressure Israel into granting them safe passage. The group claimed that Israel had violated the ceasefire by attacking “besieged in the Rafah tunnels” of its fighters.
In a statement, Hamas said, “We hold (Israel) completely responsible for the lives of our fighters and demand that our mediators take immediate action to pressure Israel into allowing our sons to return home.”
Will phase two of the ceasefire be reached?
In the interim, discussions are being started about how to move forward with the second phase of the ceasefire, which will include creating an international body to temporarily govern the Gaza Strip and oversee reconstruction.
The second phase was discussed by mediators from Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt, according to Reuters. However, significant questions still linger over Israel’s commitment to carry out the plan’s nearly every component.
Source: Aljazeera
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