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Gaza’s media office has accused Israel of violating the ceasefire with Hamas 47 times since the truce came into effect in early October, killing 38 Palestinians and wounding another 143.
“These violations have included crimes of direct gunfire against civilians, deliberate shelling and targeting, and the arrest of a number of civilians, reflecting the occupation’s continued policy of aggression despite the declared end of the war,” reads the statement.
Authorities in Gaza called on “the United Nations and the guarantor parties of the agreement to intervene urgently to compel the occupation to end its ongoing aggression and to protect unarmed civilian populations”.
The office’s statement follows the killing of 11 members of a Palestinian family by Israeli forces on Friday, described as the deadliest single violation of the fragile ceasefire since it took effect eight days ago. Gaza’s civil defence agency said the family were trying to reach their home in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City when the bus they were in was attacked for allegedly crossing the so-called “yellow line” that demarcates areas of Israeli army control.
“They had crossed the so-called ‘yellow line’, an imaginary boundary mentioned by the Israeli army,” said Mahmoud Basal, the spokesperson for the Gaza civil defence. “I am certain the family couldn’t distinguish between the yellow and red lines because there are no actual physical markers on the ground.”
Footage released by Gaza’s civil defence agency show the bodies of the family during the retrieval mission in conjunction with the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The victims include seven children and three women.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told the Guardian a “suspicious vehicle was identified crossing the yellow line and approaching IDF troops operating in the northern Gaza Strip”, adding: “The troops fired warning shots toward the suspicious vehicle, but the vehicle continued to approach the troops in a way that caused an imminent threat to them. The troops opened fire to remove the threat, in accordance with the agreement.”
The incident comes as Israel and Hamas continue to trade blame over breaches of the truce. Israel accused the militant group of violating the ceasefire agreement by failing to return the remains of deceased hostages. On Monday, Hamas returned the last 20 surviving hostages but has handed back only 10 of 28 deceased captives, saying it would need specialist recovery equipment to retrieve the rest from the ruins of Gaza.
Turkey has deployed dozens of disaster relief specialists to help search for bodies under the rubble. Efforts to recover bodies over a week into the ceasefire continue, with the Palestinian death toll now above 68,000, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Gaza’s civil defence agency estimates that the bodies of about 10,000 people are trapped under the debris and collapsed buildings. The task ahead of the rescuers is immense given that there is an estimated 60m tonnes of rubble across the territory.
The office of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Saturday that the body of a deceased hostage returned overnight by Hamas has been identified as Eliyahu Margalit.
Israel returned the bodies of another 15 Palestinians to Gaza on Saturday, bringing the total number handed over to 135, the health ministry said. Doctors at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis said the bodies showed signs of torture and execution, including blindfolds, cuffed hands and bullet wounds in the head, according to doctors’ accounts.
Meanwhile, aid remains critically scarce in Gaza one week into the ceasefire, humanitarian agencies have warned, as Israel delays the entry of food convoys into the territory.
The Palestinian embassy in Egypt announced on Saturday that Palestinian citizens living in Egypt who want to return to Gaza will be able to travel via the Rafah crossing starting on Monday.
In a separate development on Saturday, an Israeli strike on a construction vehicle in southern Lebanon killed a man, the Lebanese health ministry reported.
Israel has repeatedly bombed Lebanon despite a November ceasefire that brought to an end more than a year of hostilities with the militant group Hezbollah that culminated in two months of open war.
