Strike on Nuseirat home kills family of three as violence persists despite ceasefire; Rafah crossing to reopen Wednesday for limited passenger traffic.
CAIRO/GAZA CITY — At least 12 Palestinians, including a pregnant woman, her 10-year-old son, and eight police officers, were killed in Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, hospital officials reported, underscoring the fragility of the current ceasefire.
The first strike hit a residential home in the densely populated Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza during the early morning hours. According to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, four people were killed: a couple in their 30s, their 10-year-old son, and a 15-year-old neighbor. The woman was pregnant with twins at the time of her death, hospital staff confirmed.
Neighbors described being jolted from sleep by the blast without any warning.
“We were sleeping and got up to the strike of a missile. The strike was strong. There was no prior warning,” said Mahmoud Al-Muhtaseb, who lives near the destroyed home.
In a separate incident Sunday afternoon, an Israeli strike targeted a police vehicle on the Salah Al-Din route, the main south-north highway, near the central town of Zawaida. The Hamas-run Interior Ministry reported that eight officers were killed, including Col. Iyad Abu Yousef, a senior police official in central Gaza. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which received the bodies, confirmed the toll and stated that 14 others were wounded.
The Israeli military said it carried out the strike in response to an earlier incident in which a militant opened fire on troops. No further details were provided.
Ceasefire Under Strain
Sunday’s fatalities are the latest in a string of violent incidents since a ceasefire deal was brokered in October to halt more than two years of war between Israel and Hamas.
While major combat operations have subsided, near-daily Israeli fire has continued. Gaza health officials report that more than 650 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the ceasefire took effect, through a combination of airstrikes and shooting near military-declared zones.
Israel maintains it is responding to ceasefire violations and targeting wanted militants. However, the Gaza Health Ministry states that approximately half of those killed since the truce began have been women and children.
The latest deaths bring the overall Palestinian toll since the start of the war to more than 72,200, according to the ministry. The conflict was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed over 1,200 people and saw more than 250 taken hostage.
The health ministry’s casualty records are considered generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts, though they do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Rafah Crossing to Reopen
In a separate development, Israel announced it will permit the reopening of Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt starting Wednesday, following a hiatus of more than two weeks.
COGAT, the Israeli military body responsible for coordinating aid to Gaza, stated that the crossing will resume operations with “limited” passenger traffic in both directions. However, no cargo will be allowed through.
The crossing had been closed since Feb. 28, when Israel and the US launched strikes on Iran, triggering a broader regional escalation. COGAT said procedures would mirror those in place prior to the closure, which allowed a limited number of patients and wounded individuals to exit Gaza for medical treatment.
That number represents a fraction of the more than 20,000 people estimated by the Gaza Health Ministry to require medical evacuation. Some Palestinians who received treatment in Egypt during the war have also been permitted to return to the strip, though returnees have reportedly alleged abuses by Israeli troops at the crossing point.
