Palestinians held funerals on Saturday for a woman pregnant with twins and two of her children, days after Israeli strikes in Gaza that local hospitals said killed at least 13 people, according to Palestinian accounts and hospital officials cited by The Associated Press.
In northern Gaza, Khalid Al-Tanani, of Beit Lahiya, said the strikes killed his wife, Islam Al-Tanani, and his son Hamza, along with his daughter Naya. Al-Tanani said the family survived the first shelling and were calling out to each other when additional shells hit “one after the other,” before he went inside and found his wife and children dead. He said the children were 4 and 13 years old, and he described the moment as the strikes came without prior notice.
Al-Tanani said the 13-year-old twin survived, along with another of the couple’s children. Family members wailed over the bodies during the funerals, including Hamza’s grandmother, who sobbed that Hamza was taken from them and that she felt broken.
In Khan Younis, officials at Nasser Hospital said eight people, including four police officers, were killed after Israel targeted a police vehicle. The AP report said the toll on Friday also included two men killed in Gaza City and eight others killed in Khan Younis, according to local hospitals.
Israel’s military said it targeted two militants that threatened troops in Gaza City after it warned civilians. It did not comment on the Khan Younis strike that local hospital officials said killed eight people.
While the heaviest fighting has mostly subsided, deadly Israeli strikes have repeatedly disrupted the truce that took effect Oct. 10, Gaza residents said. The AP report said the escalating Palestinian toll has led many in Gaza to describe the war as continuing unabated, despite the ceasefire.
Israel has said it frequently fires on Palestinians near military-held zones, and that militants carry out shooting attacks on troops. The military said its strikes are in response to those violations, while Palestinian officials and residents describe the strikes as occurring without warning.
Gaza’s Health Ministry, which the AP report said is part of the Hamas-led government and maintains detailed casualty records that U.N. agencies and independent experts generally regard as reliable, said Israeli attacks have killed more than 790 people since the fragile ceasefire between Hamas and Israel was put in place about six months earlier. The ministry said it reports 72,300 Palestinians killed since the war began with the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel.
In the weeks and months after the ceasefire began, the AP report said the cycle of accusations between Israel and Hamas over violations continued, setting the stage for more funerals as families mourned people killed in strikes that both sides described through competing security narratives.