Israel Resumes Airstrikes on Gaza Strip... 592 Dead in Three Days

About 600 Palestinian residents have died over three days since the Israeli military resumed airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel. Photo by Yonhap News

According to the Associated Press (AP) on the 20th (local time), the Gaza Strip Ministry of Health, governed by the Palestinian armed faction Hamas, reported a total of 592 deaths from the 18th to this day. The Gaza Strip Ministry of Health claimed that 85 additional people died overnight alone.

The AP reported that Israeli airstrikes were concentrated in the early morning on areas such as Abasan al-Kabira in eastern Gaza and Beit Lahiya in the north, damaging several residential buildings.

Earlier, the Israeli military had refrained from clashes for a while even after the first phase of the ceasefire agreement with Hamas expired on the 1st of this month, but on the 18th, it simultaneously struck about 80 locations in the Gaza Strip, resuming full-scale airstrikes.

Meanwhile, Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), posted on X (formerly Twitter) on the same day, stating, "It has been confirmed that five more UNRWA staff members have died in recent days." He said that since the outbreak of the Gaza Strip war in October 2023, the number of UNRWA staff deaths, including teachers, doctors, and nurses, has risen to 284, adding, "The worst is yet to come."

Hamas also appears to be taking armed action in response to Israeli military movements. The Israeli military stated that several projectiles were detected flying from the Gaza Strip toward central Israel in the afternoon, with one intercepted and two others landing in open areas. In this regard, Hamas’s armed group, the Al-Qassam Brigades, issued a statement saying, "In response to the massacre of civilians by Zionists (Israel), we fired rockets at Tel Aviv."