According to Gaza’s civil defence agency, at least eight people, including five children, were killed by an Israeli airstrike on a house and a tent housing displaced people on Sunday as Palestinians celebrated the first day of Eid al-Fitr.
The strike came as Israel and Hamas both confirmed that mediators had offered a fresh ceasefire proposal to stop fighting in Gaza over the holiday.
“There are eight martyrs, including five children, following a pre-dawn Israeli air strike on a house and a tent sheltering displaced people in Khan Yunis,” Mahmud Bassal, spokesperson for the Civil Defence Service, told AFP.
On March 18, Israel renewed its ground offensive and aerial bombardment of the Palestinian territory, shattering the tenuous truce that had brought weeks of relative peace to the Gaza Strip.
The airstrike on Sunday coincided with ongoing efforts by mediators Egypt, Qatar, and the United States to facilitate a truce and ensure the release of Israeli hostages who are still being held in Gaza.
The party has accepted a new ceasefire proposal proposed by mediators, a senior Hamas leader said on Saturday, and he called on Israel to back it.
According to the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the proposal was received, and Israel responded with a counterproposal.
Nevertheless, the specifics of the most recent mediation attempts are still unknown.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which killed 1,218 people, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli numbers, set off the current conflict in Gaza.
In the course of the assault, militants also kidnapped 251 people, 58 of whom are still in captivity, including 34 the Israeli military claims are dead.
Israel’s military campaign against the Palestinian organisation has killed at least 50,277 people in Gaza since the Hamas onslaught, the health ministry of the Hamas-run enclave reports, most of them civilians.
