Israeli strikes kill 15 in Gaza; UN halts aid delivery

Israeli military strikes killed at least 15 Palestinians in Gaza on Sunday, medics said, as Israeli forces kept up bombardments across the enclave and blew up houses on its northern edge.

As fighting raged almost 14 months into the war, the head of the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) said it had to halt aid deliveries through one crossing a day after armed gangs inside Gaza seized food from a convoy of trucks.

“This difficult decision comes at a time hunger is rapidly deepening,” UNRWA’s Philippe Lazzarini said in a post on X.

In the central Gaza camp of Nuseirat, an Israeli airstrike killed six people in a house, and another attack killed three in a home in Gaza City, medics said.

Two children were killed when a missile hit a tent encampment in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, while four other people were killed in an airstrike in Rafah, near the border with Egypt, medics told international media.

Residents said the military blew up clusters of houses in the northern Gaza areas of Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, where Israeli forces have operated since October this year. Palestinians say Israel’s operations on the northern edge of the enclave are part of a plan to clear people out through forced evacuations and bombardments to create a buffer zone.

The military says it has killed hundreds of Hamas militants there as it fights to stop the faction regrouping.