- One strike kills the son of a top Gaza health official
- No progress in talks to end the conflict
GAZA: Gaza’s health officials said on Saturday that Israeli fire killed at least four people in the Palestinian territory, including a ten-year-old girl and the son of a top government official.
A statement from Gaza’s health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority, said that the child “succumbed to wounds sustained this morning from Israeli army fire north of the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.”
An airstrike also killed Baseer Al-Barsh, the son of Munir Al-Barsh who serves as director-general of Gaza’s health ministry, in an encampment for displaced people in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, the ministry said.
Speaking during his son’s funeral, Munir Al-Bursh said the killing was “a continuation of (Israel’s) crimes,” according to a ministry statement.
In addition, two Palestinians were killed and several others injured in two separate strikes near Gaza City, according to Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital and the territory’s civil defense, a rescue agency operating under Hamas authority.
The Israeli army did not immediately respond to an AFP inquiry on the strikes.
Israel in October last year agreed to a ceasefire brokered by the United States but since then has advanced further into Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed no let-up in strikes targeting Hamas, which led the unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack against Israel, and no pullout from Gaza until Hamas gives up all of its weapons.
The 2023 attack killed 1,221 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures. The militants also dragged into Gaza some 251 hostages, 44 of them already dead.
The massive Israeli offensive in response has left most of Gaza in ruins and killed more than 73,800 people, according to the Gaza health ministry, which is under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.
Israeli strikes have killed more than 1,300 people since the ceasefire was announced last year, according to the Gaza health ministry, whose figures are considered generally reliable by the United Nations.
The Israeli army has identified five deaths in its ranks over the same period, as well as the death of one civilian contractor.



