Israeli attacks on Gaza increased by 35% since Iran ceasefire: Report

Israel has drastically escalated its attacks on the besieged Gaza Strip in the five weeks since halting its joint bombing with the United States of Iran, redirecting its firepower to the devastated Palestinian enclave.

Conflict monitor ACLED, which tracks Israeli attacks in Gaza, said in ⁠a report on Wednesday that Israel had carried out 35 percent more attacks in April than in March.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 120 Palestinians, including eight women and 13 children, have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since the US-Israel war on Iran halted on April 8, a 20 percent increase compared with the five weeks prior when Israel was striking Iran.

“The war is still ongoing,” Lafi al-Najjar, a blind Palestinian, one of whose sons was killed in an Israeli attack on April 28, told the Reuters news agency.

“It stopped in the announcement, but in reality and on the ground, the war has not stopped,” he added. His family has been living in a shelter in the ruins of Khan Younis, once Gaza’s second-largest city.

The Israeli military did not immediately provide comments on the reasons for its increasing strikes in Gaza, where a so-called “ceasefire” in Israel’s two-year genocidal war has been in place since October.

The “ceasefire” agreement mediated by the US and Qatar aimed to halt major fighting in Gaza, but Israeli forces have not withdrawn from the territory, while Israel continues to impose severe restrictions on aid supplies and has prevented efforts to rebuild the Palestinian territory.

Israeli forces still occupy more than half of Gaza’s territory, where they have demolished many of the remaining buildings and ordered all residents out.

More than two million people now live in a tiny strip of territory ⁠along the coast, mostly in damaged structures or makeshift tents, where Hamas fighters have de facto control.

About 850 Palestinians have reportedly been killed in Israeli attacks since the “ceasefire” took effect. At least four Israeli soldiers were killed by Palestinian armed groups during the same period.

Since Israel joined the US in bombing Iran ‌in March, ‌its military has also launched a ground invasion and air campaign in Lebanon, where fighting has continued, especially in the south of the country, despite a separate US-brokered ceasefire taking effect last month.