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World / Middle East

Air strikes in Gaza crush joy of ceasefire deal

Published: 16 Jan 2025 - 05:30 pm | Last Updated: 16 Jan 2025 - 06:04 pm
The daughter of a man killed during an Israeli air strike the previous day, checks the destruction at the site of the attack, in Jenin's refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, on January 16, 2025. (Photo by Zain JAAFAR / AFP)

The daughter of a man killed during an Israeli air strike the previous day, checks the destruction at the site of the attack, in Jenin's refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, on January 16, 2025. (Photo by Zain JAAFAR / AFP)

AFP

After news of a ceasefire agreement sparked mass rejoicing in Gaza, residents woke up Thursday to columns of smoke, rubble and more deaths following new Israeli air strikes.

"We were waiting for the truce and were happy. It was the happiest night since October 7," said Gaza resident Saeed Alloush.

"Suddenly... we received the news of the martyrdom of 40 people," including his uncle, Alloush said.

"The whole area's joy turned to sadness as if an earthquake struck."

The latest strikes came after Qatar and the United States announced a ceasefire deal that should take effect on Sunday.

Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for Gaza's civil defence agency, told AFP on Thursday that at least 73 people had been killed in Israeli air strikes since the announcement on Wednesday.

Among them were 20 children and 25 women, he said, with around 200 others wounded.

As day broke, crowds gathered to inspect and clear the remains of a building reduced to rubble, where chunks of concrete lay interspersed with rebar and personal items scattered across the site.

The scenes mirrored those in other parts of the densely populated territory of 2.4 million people, most of whom have been displaced at least once since war broke out.

At Nasser Hospital, the main medical facility of the southern city of Khan Yunis, AFP journalists saw stained metal mortuary stretchers stained in red as staff drained them of the blood of the dead in a strike.

In Gaza City's Al-Ahli hospital, where several strike casualties were taken, grieving families knelt by the white shrouds enveloping their loved ones' bodies.

Rescuer Ibrahim Abu al-Rish told AFP that "after the ceasefire was announced and people were happy and joyful, a five-storey building was targeted, with more than 50 people inside".

Wearing headlights, first responders and local residents searched through the rubble late at night in the devastated streets of Gaza City.

Abu al-Rish, an ambulance driver for Gaza's civil defence agency, said Thursday that "shelling is still continuing, targeting one house after another".

In the Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, resident Mahmud al-Qarnawi told AFP that until the agreement takes hold, Gazans would remain vulnerable.

"The shooting has not stopped, the planes are still in the air and the situation is difficult," he said.

As a result, Qarnawi and others AFP spoke to in the nearby city of Nuseirat said they were worried about what could happen next.

"We must remain cautious. And for the next three days," Motaz Bakeer, a displaced Gazan, said from the market at Nuseirat.

International medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said no one could yet feel safe in Gaza.

"Last night it was a lot of cheering for 20 minutes, and then it was a very bloody night," MSF's emergency coordinator Amande Bazerolle told AFP by phone from the territory, rounds of shelling audible in the background.