Israeli strikes kill 12 in Gaza, health ministry says

Israeli airstrikes in Gaza killed at least 12 people, the Palestinian health ministry said, with children reported to be among the fatalities in the latest violence rattling a tenuous ceasefire.

One airstrike hit an apartment in Gaza City killing three children and two women, according to a family member and the official Palestinian news agency WAFA. Another airstrike hit a tent in Khan Younis, further south, according to WAFA.

The Israeli military said it was looking into the report and did not immediately say whether it had carried out airstrikes in the enclave.

Video showed charred, blackened and destroyed walls at an apartment in a multi-storey building, and debris scattered inside it and outside on the Gaza City street.

"We found my three little nieces in the street, they say ceasefire and all, what did those children do, what did we do?" said Samer al-Atbash, a relative.

Israeli fire has killed more than 500 people, most of them civilians according to Gaza health officials, since a U.S.-brokered truce between Palestinian militant group Hamas and Israel took effect in October after two years of war.

Palestinian militants have killed four Israeli soldiers since the truce, according to Israeli authorities.

On Friday, the Israeli military said that its forces identified eight gunmen emerging from a tunnel in Rafah, in southern Gaza. Three of them were killed and a fourth, whom it described as a key Hamas commander in the area, was arrested.

The two sides have traded blame over truce violations, even as Washington presses them to proceed to the next phases of the ceasefire deal meant to end the war for good.

The next phase of U.S. President Donald Trump's plan includes complex issues such as Hamas disarmament, which the group has long rejected, further Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the deployment of an international peacekeeping force.

Gaza's main gateway, the Rafah border crossing with Egypt that has been largely shut during the war, is expected to reopen on Sunday.

Reuters