Israeli forces killed 16 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, health officials said, in one of the heaviest death tolls in a single day in weeks.
Medics and the interior ministry of the Hamas-run Gaza said an Israeli airstrike killed a senior police official and eight other officers when it hit their vehicle near the entrance to Zawayda town in the central Gaza Strip. At least 14 other people, mostly bystanders, were wounded, the Gaza health ministry said.
Earlier on Sunday, health officials said an Israeli airstrike had killed three people - a man, his pregnant wife, and their son - in the western area of Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military said it had carried out a strike in Gaza on Sunday in response to an incident a day earlier in which Hamas militants opened fire on Israeli troops. It did not say if it was referring to the strike that killed the officers or the strike that killed the family in Nuseirat.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a Palestinian father, mother, and two of their children were killed as they drove in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian health authorities said, and the Israeli military said the incident was under review.
In Gaza there have been regular outbreaks of violence since a ceasefire went into effect in October following two years of devastating war triggered by Hamas-led attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023.
While Israeli attacks in Gaza declined in the days after the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran on February 28, according to residents, medics and analysts, they have since begun to rise again.
