Senior Hamas official and Palestinian lawmaker Salah al-Bardawil was killed in an Israeli airstrike on western Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip yesterday.
Hamas stated that Bardawil, a member of its political bureau and a deputy in the Palestinian Legislative Council, was killed in a “targeted strike while observing night prayers in his tent in the Al-Mawasi area.”
His wife was also killed in the attack, the group added.
The airstrike was part of an ongoing Israeli bombardment of Gaza, which has intensified in recent days.
Hamas condemned the attack as a “cowardly Zionist attack” and said Israel is “committing war crimes within a systematic campaign of massacres” in Gaza.
More than 700 Palestinians have been killed and over 1,000 injured in a surprise aerial campaign by Israel on Gaza since Tuesday, shattering a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement that took hold in January.
At least 41 more Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, raising the death toll since October 2023 to 50,021, the Health Ministry said on Sunday.
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A ministry statement said the toll included two bodies retrieved from the rubble in the last 24 hours.
The ministry said 61 more injured people were transferred to hospitals, taking the number of injuries to 113,274 in the Israeli onslaught.
“Many victims are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them,” it added.
Over 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and more than 113,250 injured in a brutal Israeli military onslaught on Gaza since October 2023.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last November for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinians began to flee the Tel al-Sultan neighbourhood in western Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday after an Israeli evacuation order.
According to an Anadolu reporter, families carried few belongings as they left their tents and moved on foot toward al-Mawasi, which stretches along Gaza’s coastline from southern Khan Younis to northern Deir al-Balah.
Witnesses said Israeli forces opened fire on displacing civilians leaving the area on their carts.
A medical source said several people were killed and injured in the attack, without giving an exact figure.
The evacuation order came amid dire humanitarian conditions across Gaza, which officially entered the first stage of famine last week amid Israel’s continued closure of the territory’s border crossings since March 2.
The Israeli army ordered residents of Tel al-Sultan to evacuate immediately, calling the area a “dangerous combat zone.”
The military also warned civilians not to use vehicles and threatened grave consequences for residents remaining in shelters.
In another development, Israel’s Security Cabinet has approved the formation of a directorate to encourage what it called the “voluntary departure” of Palestinians from the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement late Saturday that the new directorate will work to “prepare for and enable safe and controlled passage of Gaza residents for their voluntary departure to third countries.”
Katz’s office said the new administration will be responsible for establishing movement routes, checking pedestrians at designated crossings in Gaza, and coordinating the provision of infrastructure that will enable passage by land, sea, and air to the destination countries.
He claimed that the departure of Gazans would be subject “to Israeli and international law and in accordance with the vision of US President Donald Trump.”
“We are working with all means to implement the US president’s vision, and we will allow any Gaza resident who wants to move to a third state to do so,” Katz said.
According to the statement, the head of the new directorate will be selected by the defense minister soon.
Trump has repeatedly called to “take over” Gaza and resettle its population to develop it into a tourist destination. His plan was rejected by the Arab world and many other nations, who say it amounts to ethnic cleansing.
Palestinian authorities also warned on Sunday of a “humanitarian disaster” for Gaza’s 2.4 million population amid a stifling Israeli blockade and renewed airstrikes.
“The Gaza Strip is on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe amid ongoing genocide and international silence,” Gaza’s government media office said in a statement.
“More than 2.4 million Palestinians are facing an unprecedented humanitarian disaster as the Israeli occupation continues to implement a policy of genocide and daily killing of defenseless civilians without any deterrent from the international community.”
The media office said Israel’s continued blockade of Gaza’s crossings to humanitarian aid “has caused hunger and malnutrition to surge among the population, particularly children and elderly people.”
“This (Israeli) policy deepens the worsening crisis, at a time when our Palestinian people are suffering from a systematic policy of starvation,” it warned.
The office said that Gaza was grappling with “a severe water crisis that is threatening the lives of Palestinians amid a lack of safe drinking water and the spread of diseases, compounded by the lack of healthcare services.”
