5 more Gazans killed in Israeli drone strikes despite ceasefire

GAZA CITY, Palestine / ISTANBUL

Five Palestinians were killed and several others injured in new Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip on Monday, in the latest violations of a ceasefire agreement, a medical source said.

Witnesses said a quadcopter drone struck a group of people as they were collecting firewood for cooking northeast of the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.

The source said three people were killed and several others injured in the attack.

Two more people lost their lives when an Israeli drone fired a missile into a school sheltering displaced civilians east of the Bureij camp, another medical source said.

Three more Palestinians were injured in another strike targeting a group of civilians in the Jneina neighborhood east of Rafah in southern Gaza, the source said.

Meanwhile, the Civil Defense Agency said its teams extinguished a fire that erupted near Palestinian tents in the Tel Al-Sultan neighborhood in Rafah after Israeli shelling.

Monday’s attacks were the latest Israeli violations of the ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement that took hold in Gaza in January, halting Israel’s brutal war, which has killed nearly 48,600 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and left the enclave in ruins.

Despite the ceasefire, the Gaza local authorities reported almost daily ceasefire violations by the Israeli army.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its military campaign.