Israel unleashed one of its largest bombardments in weeks, killing at least 58 people, including a cafe filled with 20 people.
Women, children and one journalist were killed while in a beachfront cafe in Gaza City, according to medics on the ground.
The cafe was one of the few businesses to continue operating – at extremely diminished capacity – during the 20-month war, serving as a gathering spot for residents seeking internet access and a place to charge their phones.
Videos circulating on social media showed bloodied and disfigured bodies on the ground and the wounded being carried away in blankets.
The journalist killed has been named as Ismail Abu Hatab, a photographer who was previously wounded in 2023 while covering the war.
He’s the 186th Palestinian journalist killed since the war began. 86 others imprisoned, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Israel has claimed they were striking militant targets in northern Gaza in their latest attack.
Airstrikes continued in northern Gaza, targeting at least four schools after previous orders were issued to Palestinians who had been sheltering inside.
60-year-old Salah, a father of five from Gaza City, told Reuters: ‘Explosions never stopped; they bombed schools and homes. It felt like an earthquake.
‘In the news, we hear a ceasefire is near, on the ground, we see death, and we hear explosions.’
The IDF has said they are looking into reports of civilians being harmed near aid points as well.
They said instructions had been given to their forces after ‘lessons learned’ – but they didn’t specify what those lessons were.
Earlier today, the IDF killed at least 22 people and wounded 20 others who were trying to get food aid in southern Gaza. They have claimed they were ‘warning shots’.
Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said it received the bodies of 11 people who were shot while returning from an aid site associated with the Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Fund in southern Gaza on Monday.
It’s part of a deadly pattern that has killed more than 500 Palestinians in the chaotic and controversial aid distribution programme over the past month.
The military intensified its bombardment campaign across Gaza City and the nearby Jabaliya refugee camp. On Sunday and Monday, Israel issued widespread evacuation orders for large swaths of northern Gaza.
Palestinians reported massive bombing overnight into Monday morning, describing the fresh attacks as a “scorched earth” campaign that targeted mostly empty buildings and civilian infrastructure.
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The Israeli military said it had taken multiple steps to notify civilians of operations to target Hamas’ military command and control centres in northern Gaza.
The war has killed more than 56,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. It says more than half of the dead were women and children.
The Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, that sparked the war killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 others hostage. Some 50 hostages remain, many of them thought to be dead.
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