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Israeli airstrikes kill over 25 people in Gaza
Israel resumed its aerial and ground assault on Gaza on March 18, reigniting fighting after a two-month cease-fire that had paused more than 15 months of war in the coastal territory.
“Since dawn today, the occupation’s airstrikes have killed 20 people and injured dozens more, including children and women across the Gaza Strip,” Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the civil defense agency told AFP.
In a separate statement later, the agency reported that five people were killed in an Israeli drone strike on a group of civilians in eastern Rafah.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday vowed to continue the war and bring home the remaining hostages held in Gaza without yielding to Hamas’s demands.
“We are at a critical stage of the campaign, and at this point, we need patience and determination to win,” Netanyahu said in a statement, rejecting calls from Hamas to end the war and withdraw troops from Gaza.Since Israel resumed its offensive last month, at least 1,827 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry.
The overall death toll in the Gaza war has reached 51,201, the majority of them civilians, according to the ministry, figures the UN considers reliable.
The war broke out after Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel in October 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
During that attack, Palestinian fighters arrested 251 people, 58 of whom are still held hostage in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.