DEIR EL-BALAH – Early Thursday, two Israeli airstrikes in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis claimed the lives of five individuals, hospital officials reported, raising the total number of casualties from airstrikes in the Palestinian region to 33 over approximately 12 hours. These attacks are among the most lethal since the U.S.-mediated ceasefire that began on October 10.

The escalation followed an incident on Wednesday where Israel stated its troops were fired upon in Khan Younis. In response, Israel conducted retaliatory airstrikes, although no Israeli soldiers were reported killed.

Nasser hospital officials in Khan Younis confirmed receiving 17 bodies, which included five women and five children, after four airstrikes targeted tents housing displaced individuals.

In another incident, two airstrikes on a building in Gaza City resulted in 16 fatalities, comprising seven children and three women, according to Al-Shifa hospital officials in the city’s northern region, where the victims were taken.

Hamas, in a statement, condemned the Israeli attacks as a “shocking massacre” and denied initiating any gunfire toward Israeli forces.

The ceasefire is once again facing significant strain.

Hospital officials said the bodies came from both sides of a line established in last month’s ceasefire. The boundary splits Gaza in two, leaving the border zone under Israeli military control while the area beyond it is meant to serve as a safe zone.

Israeli strikes have decreased since the ceasefire agreement took effect, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, though they have not stopped entirely.

The ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, reported more than 300 deaths since the truce began, an average of more than seven per day. Each side has accused the other of violating its terms, which include increasing the flow of aid into Gaza and returning hostages — dead or alive — to Israel.

The deaths are among the more than 69,000 Palestinians killed since Israel launched its sweeping offensive more than two years ago in response to Hamas-led militants abducting 251 people and killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war. Gaza’s Health Ministry, part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals, maintains detailed records seen as a reliable estimate by the U.N. and many independent experts.

Israel targets Hezbollah in Lebanon

The Gaza strikes coincided with a barrage of Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon on Wednesday on what the Israeli military said said were Hezbollah sites, including weapons storage facilities. A day earlier, an Israeli airstrike killed 13 people in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh, the deadliest of Israeli attacks on Lebanon since a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war a year ago.

The Israeli military said Hezbollah was working to reestablish itself and rebuild its capacity in southern Lebanon, without providing evidence. It said the weapons’ facilities targeted were embedded among civilians and violated understandings between Israel and Lebanon. Israel agreed to a ceasefire and withdrew from southern Lebanon last year and Lebanon agreed to quell Hezbollah activity in the area.

Earlier Wednesday, an Israeli airstrike on a car in the southern Lebanese village of Tiri killed one person and wounded 11, including students aboard a nearby bus, the Lebanese Health Ministry and state media said. State-run National News Agency said the school bus happened to be passing near the car that was hit.

Israel’s military later said it killed a Hezbollah operative in the drone strike.

New Israeli settlement near Bethlehem

Meanwhile, Israeli settlers reportedly set up a new settlement near Bethlehem in Gush Etzion overnight. Etzion Council Chairman Yaron Rosenthal welcomed the settlement as an Israeli “return to the city of our matriarch Rachel, of King David.”

Rosenthal said the new community would “strengthen the connection between the eastern part” of Etzion and Jerusalem.

Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza — areas claimed by the Palestinians for a future state — in the 1967 Mideast war. It has settled over 500,000 Jews in the West Bank, most of whom live on authorized settlements, in addition to over 200,000 others in contested east Jerusalem, which it claims as part of its capital.

A growing wave of settler violence in the West Bank has been condemned by Israel’s president and high-ranking military officials.

Israel’s government is dominated by far-right proponents of the settler movement including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who formulates settlement policy, and Cabinet minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees the nation’s police force.

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Find more of AP’s Israel-Hamas coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war