Israel launches fresh strikes on Gaza; Qatar warns of escalation

3 FROM ONE FAMILY, INCLUDING A ONE-YEAR-OLD GIRL, AMONG VICTIMS

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Gaza health authorities said fresh Israeli air strikes killed four people yesterday as Qatar, a mediator of the weeks-long ceasefire, warned that renewed attacks threatened to undermine the fragile truce between Israel and Hamas.

The new strikes came the morning after one of the deadliest days in the Gaza Strip since the truce came into effect on October 10, and after Israel launched a string of attacks targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon despite the nearly yearlong ceasefire there.

The Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza said four people were killed in the strikes early yesterday, after the territory's civil defence agency, which operates under Hamas authority, gave a lower toll of three dead.

The hospital said three from one family, including a one-year-old girl, were killed in a strike on a house east of Khan Younis and one more person was killed in an air strike on the town of Abasan Al Kabira, also east of Khan Younis.

A source at Gaza's Hamas-run interior ministry, who did not wish to be identified, said artillery fire was continuing in the Khan Younis area.