Israeli strike kills three in Gaza as regional offensives escalate

An Israeli airstrike in Gaza killed three Palestinians, including two 17-year-olds, Palestinian medics said on Friday, with violence continuing in the West Bank and Gaza even as Israel expands its offensive across the region.

Israel has used lethal force in Iran, Lebanon, Gaza and the occupied West Bank over the past 24 hours.

Israeli forces killed two in the West Bank city of Nablus on Thursday, according to Palestinian officials, while the death toll in Lebanon reached 773, its Health Ministry said on Friday.

After nearly two weeks of war, 2,000 people have been killed, most of them in Iran, with several million people displaced from their homes.

The Israeli military told Reuters that they were not aware of the strike in Gaza.

The military said separately in a statement on Thursday that they had killed two individuals after they attempted to carry out a car-ramming attack on soldiers. It did not immediately respond to a request for evidence of the attempted ramming.

While Israeli attacks on Gaza declined at the beginning of the war with Iran, they have since begun to rise. Israel has killed 23 in Gaza since the US and Israel jointly struck Iran on February 28.

While a ceasefire went into effect in Gaza in October, there have been regular outbreaks of violence since then.

Reuters has reported that US President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza has been on hold since the start of the Iran war.

Violence has also persisted in the West Bank. Israeli settlers and military forces have killed at least eight Palestinians across the West Bank since the US-Israeli attacks on Iran began.

Reuters has reported that there has been a spike in settler violence since then, as Israel has put much of the West Bank under lockdown.