Israeli airstrikes kill at least 11 in Gaza City, including children

Israeli airstrikes ripped through residential buildings in Gaza City before dawn on Thursday, killing at least 11 Palestinians and wounding dozens more in attacks that hit homes in Sheikh Radwan, Tel al-Hawa and the Shati refugee camp. Women and children were among the dead, and medics said at least 15 people were injured as explosions, fires and panic spread through several neighborhoods.

The strikes hit at least four residential buildings, according to medical sources and civil defense officials. Among those reportedly targeted was Hamas commander Hassan Labad in northern Gaza. He was killed along with his wife and three of their children. Gaza civil defense said the dead from the Labad family included two children with disabilities, and three women were also among those killed. Witnesses said three Israeli helicopters hovered briefly over Gaza City’s coastline before the simultaneous strikes, underscoring the speed and coordination of the attack.

The civilian toll lands in a city already battered by months of war and repeated air assaults on dense urban areas. Residents in the struck neighborhoods faced powerful blasts that tore into apartments and sent people fleeing through smoke and flames. The attack also highlighted the difficulty of tracing casualty claims in Gaza, where medics, civil defense crews and competing military accounts remain the main sources of information while access to the sites is limited and damage is widespread.

The assault came as a U.S.-brokered ceasefire has failed to stop Israeli strikes in Gaza. Indirect talks on the deal’s second phase have stalled, and Gaza health officials say more than 930 Palestinians have been killed since the truce began. Israel says four of its soldiers have been killed by militants during the same period. A later tally from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry put the number of people killed since the ceasefire at more than 940. The war, which began after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and led to 251 hostages being taken, has now killed more than 72,000 people in Gaza, according to the figures cited. The latest strike on Gaza City adds to a pattern of urban bombardment that has kept civilians trapped at the center of the conflict.