Israeli airstrikes across multiple parts of the Gaza Strip have killed 21 people, Palestinian civil defence authorities said, including a medic from the Palestinian Red Crescent. The strikes hit neighbourhoods in Gaza City and a temporary tent camp in the southern Mawasi area, where many displaced families remain sheltering, and left several others wounded.
The Israel Defense Forces said its troops came under fire from armed men near the northern "yellow line" while carrying out routine operations, and that a reserve officer was seriously injured. The army accused Hamas of a clear breach of a ceasefire agreement and said it subsequently struck targets across the territory in response. Hamas denied the allegation and condemned the strikes, rejecting responsibility for any shooting at Israeli forces.
The incident comes against a backdrop of fragile pauses and intermittent hostilities that have defined the Gaza conflict since late 2023. Front-line demarcations such as the so-called "yellow line" remain contested and porous, and isolated exchanges of fire have repeatedly triggered broader aerial campaigns. For civilians, the consequence is recurrent displacement, degraded medical services and severe exposure to the risks posed by air operations near densely populated or temporary shelter sites.
Beyond the immediate toll, the death of a medical worker carries legal and symbolic weight: attacks that hit aid personnel and facilities intensify international scrutiny and complicate humanitarian access. Diplomats in the region — particularly mediators in Cairo and Doha — are likely to face renewed pressure to enforce local understandings that have, so far, provided only episodic respite. The shooting claim, the reciprocal strikes and the denials that followed together underscore how small incidents can rapidly escalate, threatening a wider deterioration in an already dire humanitarian and political environment.