Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip have killed 12 people, according to Palestinian medical officials, as the Israel-Hamas war grinds on with no end in sight.
The air strikes killed six people in Nuseirat and another four in Bureij, two built-up refugee camps in central Gaza.
Another two people were killed in a strike on Gaza’s main north-south highway, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah, which received all 12 bodies.
Israel is also at war with the Hizbullah militant group in Lebanon, where its ground troops have advanced farther to the north.
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Police in Israel, meanwhile, arrested three suspects after flares were fired at prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s private residence in the coastal city of Caesarea.
Authorities said Mr Netanyahu and his family were not at the residence when two flares were fired at it overnight, and there were no injuries.
A drone launched by Hizbullah struck the residence last month, also when Mr Netanyahu and his family were away.
The police did not provide details about the suspects behind the flares, but officials pointed to domestic political critics of Mr Netanyahu.
Israel’s largely ceremonial president, Yitzhak Herzog, condemned the incident and warned against “an escalation of the violence in the public sphere”.
Mr Netanyahu has faced months of mass protests over his handling of the hostage crisis unleashed by the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th, 2023, which ignited the ongoing war in Gaza.
Critics blame Mr Netanyahu for the security and intelligence failures that allowed the attack to happen and for not reaching a deal with Hamas to release scores of hostages still held inside Gaza.
Israelis rallied again in Tel Aviv on Saturday night to demand a ceasefire deal to return them.
Justice minister Yariv Levin meanwhile seized on the flare attack to call for a revival of his plans to overhaul the Israeli judiciary, which had sparked months of mass protests before the war and remains deeply divisive.
“The time has come to provide full support for the restoration of the justice system and the law enforcement systems, and to put an end to anarchy, rampage, refusal, and attempts to harm the prime minister,” he said in a statement.
Supporters said the judiciary changes aim to strengthen democracy by circumscribing the authority of unelected judges and turning over more powers to elected officials.
Opponents see the overhaul as a power grab by Mr Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption charges, and an assault on a key watchdog.
The war between Israel and Hamas began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel in October 2023, killing about 1,200 people – mostly civilians – and abducting 250 others. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, about a third of them believed to be dead.
The health ministry in Gaza says around 43,800 Palestinians have been killed in the war.
The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but has said women and children make up more than half the fatalities.
Around 90 per cent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million Palestinians have been displaced, and large areas of the territory have been flattened by Israeli bombardment and ground operations.
The UN Security Council’s 10 elected members on Thursday circulated a draft resolution demanding “an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza. The US, Israel’s closest ally, holds the key to whether the council adopts the resolution. – AP