CAIRO: Israeli strikes killed six Palestinians, including a child, in the Gaza Strip on Monday, health officials there said, as Israel’s military expanded the area under its control, according to residents.
The reports came as mediators in Cairo said they were pressing on with efforts to salvage a fragile US-brokered ceasefire deal that has ended major clashes but left many key points unresolved.
Medics said two people were killed when an Israeli strike hit near a tent encampment in the Mawasi area of Khan Younis in the south of the enclave.
In the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, medics said three Palestinians, including an 8-year-old boy, were killed and others were wounded in an Israeli airstrike that hit near a group of people digging a well. Later on Monday, an Israeli airstrike near the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza Strip, killed one person and wounded three others, medics said, taking Monday’s death toll to six.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the reports of the attacks or of its forces moving markers to expand the “Yellow Zone” under their control.
Israel and Hamas have repeatedly accused each other of violating the truce. Israeli strikes have killed more than 950 people since the truce, health officials say, while Israel says four soldiers were killed by militants during the same period.
Israeli troops still control more than 60% of Gaza’s territory, where they have ordered residents out and destroyed remaining buildings. Nearly the entire population of 2 million people now live in a tiny strip of land along the coast, mainly in makeshift tents or damaged buildings, under Hamas control.
“We are not allowing them to arm themselves or harm us, and we are also eliminating their senior commanders,” he said in a speech.
Witnesses in the southern Gaza areas said the Israeli forces have in the past few days expanded the “Yellow Zone”, in some areas in eastern Khan Younis and northern Rafah where new markers and concrete blocks have been placed.
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