Israeli tank shelling and air strikes killed 23 Palestinians, including seven children, in Gaza on Wednesday, health officials said, the latest violence to undermine a truce in the enclave.
Among the dead was a medic who rushed to help victims of a strike in the southern city of Khan Yunis and was then killed by a second attack on the same location, health officials said.
Other strikes hit Gaza City in the north, where health officials said a 5-month-old boy was killed. The attacks come three days after Israel reopened Gaza's main border crossing with Egypt, a major step in the US-backed truce.
"While we were sleeping in our house, the tank shelled us and the shells hit our house, our children were martyred - my son was martyred, my brother's son and daughter were martyred... We have nothing to do with anything; we are peaceful people," said Abu Mohamed Habouch, speaking at a funeral for his family.
Tents in Mawasi, a coastal area near Khan Yunis crowded with Gazans displaced by the conflict, had been ripped apart by the strikes. Nearly all of Gaza's population of over 2 million has been forced to flee their homes.
The Israeli military said it had launched the strikes in response to opening fire against Israeli troops operating near its armistice line with Hamas. A later statement said one of the strikes had targeted a senior Hamas commander.
Hamas said Israel's action undermined efforts to stabilise the ceasefire. In a statement, the group called for "immediate international pressure to halt violations."
Palestinian patients preparing to cross through the newly opened Rafah crossing to Egypt were told that Israel had postponed the passage of patients through the border.
The Israeli agency that controls access to Gaza, COGAT, said the Rafah crossing remained open, but it had not received the necessary details from the World Health Organisation to facilitate crossings. The WHO did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
An Egyptian security source said that Israel had cited security issues in the Rafah area as the reason for the temporary closure, but those had since been resolved and work had resumed at the border.
Reopening the crossing was one of the requirements under the October ceasefire that set out the first phase of US President Donald Trump's plan to stop fighting between Israel and Hamas.
Sixteen patients from Gaza and 40 of their escorts crossed into Egypt on Tuesday, Gazan medics said. A police source said that at least 40 people crossed from Egypt to Gaza late on Tuesday.
On Saturday, before the Rafah reopening, Israeli strikes killed more than 30 Palestinians in Gaza.
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