Israeli airstrikes across Gaza kill 103 people, hospitals and medics say

Palestinians inspect the damage at the site of an Israeli strike on a tent camp sheltering displaced people, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on May 18, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 103 people overnight and into Sunday (May 18, 2025), hospitals and medics in the battered enclave said as Israel launches an escalation of its war in the territory, which it says is meant to ramp up pressure on Hamas to agree to a temporary ceasefire.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

The Nasser hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis said it received the bodies of 20 people who were killed in multiple overnight airstrikes that hit houses and tents sheltering displaced families in the Muwasi area.

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In northern Gaza, at least 36 people were killed in multiple strikes, according to first responders from the health ministry and the civil defense.

The dead included nine people from a single family who were killed when an airstrike hit their house in the built-up Jabaliya refugee camp, according to the health ministry’s emergency services.

Another strike hit the house of the Berawi family, also in Jabaliya, killing 10 people including seven children and a woman, according to the civil defense, which operates under the Hamas-run government. Among the dead were two parents and their three children and a father and his four children, it said.

Closure of hospital

Health officials said that fighting around the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza and an Israeli military “siege” prompted it to shut down.

The hospital was the main medical facility in the territory’s war-wrecked north, after northern Gaza’s previous main hospital, Kamal Adwan, was forced to stop serving Palestinians last year because of Israeli strikes, as was a second facility, Beit Hanoun Hospital. The Israeli military also had no immediate comment on operations at the hospital.

Israel has repeatedly targeted hospitals in its war against Hamas, pointing to what it says are the group’s activities in and around the facilities. Human rights groups and U.N.-backed experts have accused Israel of systematically destroying Gaza’s health care system.

Israel’s new offensive on Gaza

The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the overnight strikes. Israel blames civilian casualties from its operations on Hamas because the militant group operates from civilian areas.

The bloodshed comes as Israel ramps up its war in Gaza with a new offensive named “Gideon’s Chariots,” in which Israel says it plans to seize territory, displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to Gaza’s south and take greater control over the distribution of aid.

Israel says the new plan is meant to ramp up pressure on the militant Hamas group to agree to a temporary ceasefire on Israel’s terms — one that would free Israeli hostages held in Gaza but wouldn’t necessarily end the war. Hamas says it wants a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and a pathway to ending the war as part of any new ceasefire deal.

In central Gaza, at least 10 people were killed in two separate strikes, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the town of Deir al-Balah. One strike in the Zweida town killed seven people, including two children and four women. The second hit an apartment in Deir al-Balah, killing two parents and their child, the hospital said.