Eleven killed after Israel hits bus in Gaza, Hamas-run civil defense says

The Hamas-run Gaza Civil Defense said 11 people were killed, all from the same family, after the bus they were in was hit by an Israeli tank shell in northern Gaza.

The Abu Shaaban family, he said, were trying to get to their home to check on him when the incident happened in Gaza City’s Zeytoun neighborhood on Friday evening.

It is the deadliest single incident involving Israeli soldiers in Gaza since the ceasefire began eight days ago.

The Israeli military said soldiers fired at a “suspicious vehicle” that had crossed the so-called yellow line demarcating the area still occupied by Israeli forces in Gaza.

Israeli soldiers continue to operate in more than half of the Gaza Strip under the terms of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement.

Civil defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal told AFP the victims were members of the Abu Shaaban family and were killed while trying to check their home in the area.

Among the dead are women and children, reported the Civil Defense.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it identified a “suspicious vehicle crossing the yellow line and approaching IDF troops operating in the northern Gaza Strip” on Friday, prompting it to fire “warning shots” at the vehicle.

It said the vehicle “continued to approach the troops in a manner that posed an immediate threat to them” and “the troops opened fire to eliminate the threat, in accordance with the agreement.”

Hamas said the family was attacked without justification.

IS warned Palestinians not to enter areas in Gaza still under their control.

With limited internet access, many Palestinians do not know the position of Israeli troops, as the yellow demarcation line is not physically marked and it is unclear whether the area the bus was traveling in crossed it.

The BBC asked the IDF for the coordinates of the incident.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Friday that the army would put up visual signs to show the location of the line.

In another development, Hamas on Friday released the body of Israeli hostage Eliyahu Margalit to the Red Cross, which returned it to Israel.

Mr. Margalit was the tenth deceased hostage returned from Gaza. The remains of another 18 people are yet to be repatriated.

Israel handed over the bodies of 15 more Palestinians to officials in Gaza through the Red Cross, the Hamas-run health ministry said, bringing the total number of bodies received to 135.

There was anger in Israel that Hamas had not returned all the bodies of the dead hostages, in accordance with last week’s ceasefire agreement – although the US played down suggestions that this amounted to a violation.

The IDF stressed that Hamas must “respect the agreement and take the necessary steps to return all hostages.”

Hamas has accused Israel of making the task difficult because Israeli strikes have reduced so many buildings to rubble and prevented heavy machinery and excavators in Gaza from searching for the bodies of the hostages.

As part of the US-brokered ceasefire agreement, Israel released 250 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons and 1,718 detainees from Gaza.

Hamas also returned all 20 hostages alive to Israel.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the October 7, 2023 attack in which Hamas-led gunmen killed around 1,200 people in southern Israel and took 251 others hostage.

At least 67,900 people have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.