ISRAELI AIR STRIKES killed 28 people in Gaza on Saturday, including children, according to the civil defence agency.

Despite a US-brokered ceasefire entering its second phase earlier this month, violence in the Palestinian territory has continued, with both Israel and Hamas accusing each other of violating the truce agreement.

The latest bloodshed comes after Israel announced it would reopen the crucial Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt on Sunday for the “limited movement of people”.

“Twenty-eight martyrs have been recovered, a quarter of whom are children, a third of whom are women, and one elderly man,” the civil defence agency, said in a statement, adding that people were still missing under the rubble.

“Residential apartments, tents, shelters and a police station were targeted, resulting in this humanitarian catastrophe,” agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.

One strike hit the police station in the Sheikh Radwan district of Gaza City, the territory’s largest urban centre.

Gaza’s general police directorate said seven people were killed in that attack, while Bassal said the dead included four women police officers.

“The killed included police officers and personnel as well as civilians who were present at the station at the time,” the directorate said.

About a dozen first responders rushed to the devastated building and pulled bodies from the rubble.

Another Israeli attack hit a shelter in Al-Mawasi, an area of south Gaza where tens of thousands of displaced Gazans live in tents and makeshift shelters, an AFP journalist reported.

Large plumes of smoke rose above the thousands of densely pitched tents.

The number of casualties from this strike was still not known.

Ceasefire violations

Israel’s military said in a statement that the air strikes were retaliation for an incident on Friday in which eight Palestinian fighters exited a tunnel in the south Gaza city of Rafah, which it said violated the fragile ceasefire.

Gaza health ministry general director Munir al-Barsh told AFP that Israel “continues its serious violations of the ceasefire agreement amid a severe shortage of medical supplies, medicines and medical equipment”.

Hamas in a statement condemned Saturday’s strikes as “a brutal crime”.

The health ministry has said Israeli attacks have killed at least 509 people in Gaza since the ceasefire came into effect.

Israel’s military says four soldiers have been killed in the same period in Gaza in suspected militant attacks.

Meanwhile, Israel has said Sunday’s reopening of the Rafah crossing will be only for the “limited movement of people”.

The reopening, a major demand of humanitarian organisations, is a key element in the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement.

Israel had previously expressed its unwillingness to reopen the gateway until it received the remains of Ran Gvili, the last hostage to be held in Gaza, who was recovered earlier this week and laid to rest in Israel on Wednesday.