Israel pounds Gaza as Hamas vows to continue its fight

Gaza medics and rescuers said Monday that Israeli strikes on several homes killed at least 18 people, as Hamas claimed it had ample resources to sustain its fight nearly a year into the war.

The latest strikes occurred as Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned that prospects for a halt in fighting with Hezbollah militants along the Lebanon border were dimming, raising fears of a wider regional conflict.

Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan told AFP in an interview in Istanbul on Sunday, "The resistance has a high ability to continue."

"There were martyrs and there were sacrifices... but in return there was an accumulation of experiences and the recruitment of new generations into the resistance."

His comments came less than a week after Gallant told journalists that Hamas "no longer exists" as a military formation in Gaza.

Deadly fighting continued in the Gaza Strip on Monday, with survivors searching through the debris of collapsed buildings following a strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

Ten people were killed and 15 others were wounded when an airstrike hit the home of the Al-Qassas family in Nuseirat on Monday morning, a medic at Al-Awda hospital, where the bodies were brought, told AFP.

"My house was hit while we were sleeping without any prior warning. There are many martyrs, among them the sons of my family and my little grandsons," said Rashed al-Qassas, a surviving family member.

Gaza’s civil defense agency said six Palestinians were killed in a similar airstrike during the night on a house belonging to the Bassal family in Gaza City's Zeitun neighborhood, a regular target of Israeli military raids since the war began.

Two people were killed in another overnight airstrike in Rafah that targeted a house belonging to the Abu Shaar family, the agency said.

AFP