By Ibrahim Dahman and Sophie Tanno, CNN
(CNN) — Israeli strikes across Gaza killed at least 26 people on Saturday, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the highest day’s death toll in over two months.
The latest deaths come despite a ceasefire that went into effect in mid-October and pushed the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza since the ceasefire to more than 500.
About a quarter of the bodies recovered comprised children, and a third were women, Mahmoud Basal, a spokesperson for Gaza’s Civil Defense, an emergency response organization, said.
An elderly man and four female police officers were also among the dead.Some people were trapped under the rubble as Israeli strikes targeted shelters, tents for displaced people, residential apartments and a police station, the spokesperson, Basal, said.
The director of Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical complex in Gaza, Dr. Mohammad Abu Salmiya told CNN that the number of dead is expected to rise due to the amount of critically injured people arriving at hospitals.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the strikes were launched against Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets across the Gaza Strip in response to “the violation of the ceasefire agreement yesterday (Friday), in which eight terrorists were identified exiting the underground terror infrastructure in eastern Rafah.” The IDF said Friday it had killed three of the militants and captured one.
The IDF has continued to carry out regular strikes in Gaza since the ceasefire went into effect, accusing Hamas of violating the terms of the agreement.
Samer Al-Atbash, a relative of those killed in a strike on Saturday, said, “We woke up at 4 a.m. suddenly to find that they (the Israeli military) struck three girls, my aunt who is an old lady and her daughter. She was a guest at our house. All my three nieces were then on the street.”
“Truce, truce, what’s our fault, what is our children’s faults. I don’t know what we did. These three children beloved by God, what they did do, I don’t know.”
Israeli acknowledgement
The deaths come day after local media reported that the Israeli military had acknowledged in a briefing to Israeli journalists that approximately 70,000 Palestinians were killed during the war in Gaza and that the figures from the health ministry in the enclave are largely accurate.
Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth quoted military officials Thursday as saying, “We estimate that about 70,000 Gazans were killed in the war, not including the missing.” Kan 11, the country’s public broadcaster, attributed the information to the Coordinator of Government Affairs in the Territories (COGAT) and said there is now an effort to analyze how many of those killed were civilian or militant.
The IDF said the “details published do not reflect official IDF data.” But an IDF spokesperson refused to say whether the military kept official data on Palestinians killed in Gaza or if it would be released.
Early in the war, Israel had cast doubt on the number of Palestinians the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had killed in its attacks, repeatedly accusing the health ministry, which it says is controlled by Hamas, of inflating the figures.
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