Two Palestinians killed, 10 injured in Israeli airstrike on Gaza

Ahram Online , Tuesday 17 Mar 2026

Two Palestinians were killed and 10 others injured when an Israeli airstrike hit a vehicle in the Mawasi area of Khan Younis, as the UN confirmed that 36,000 Palestinians were displaced in the occupied West Bank over the past year.

Gaza
File Photo: Palestinians gather to look at a destroyed vehicle targeted by the Israeli military, in Gaza City. AFP

 

WAFA reported that the bodies of the two killed and the wounded were taken to the Mawasi field hospital, operated by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, where the injured are receiving treatment.

Since the ceasefire agreement went into effect on 10 October 2025, Israel has violated its terms daily, killing at least 672 Palestinians and injuring 1,779 others.

Over the same period, 756 bodies of Palestinians killed during the genocidal war in Gaza have been recovered.

Israel has waged an onslaught on the Gaza Strip since October 2023, killing 72,247 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 171,878 others.

Thousands of victims remain trapped under collapsed buildings or on the streets, as emergency responders struggle to reach them due to a lack of essential equipment for debris removal and rescue operations.

In the occupied West Bank, where violence from Jewish settlers and the Israeli army has increased, the UN confirmed that over 36,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced in a single year.

A report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said this represents an unprecedented scale of forced displacement, suggesting a coordinated Israeli policy of mass transfer aimed at permanent displacement, raising concerns of ethnic cleansing.

The report called on Israel to immediately halt settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.

Excluding Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem, more than 500,000 Israelis live in settlements and outposts across the West Bank, which are considered illegal under international law.

Israel is accelerating settlement expansion in the West Bank, recently approving 22 new settlements, legalizing unauthorized outposts, and authorizing measures allowing settlers to take Palestinian land. Projects such as the E1 plan aim to split the West Bank, isolating Palestinian communities and surrounding East Jerusalem.

UN rights chief Volker Turk said Israel’s actions in the West Bank and Gaza appear intended to create “permanent demographic change.”

Entire Bedouin communities have been displaced by increasing harassment and violence from Israeli settlers, including areas near Mikhmas east of Ramallah and Ras Ein Al-Auja in the Jordan Valley, since the start of the year.

Since Israel and the US attacked Iran, Israeli authorities have further restricted movement across the West Bank, intermittently closing hundreds of gates and checkpoints on roads used by residents, ambulances, and commercial vehicles.

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