Israeli strikes kill 22 in Gaza; truck ramming in Tel Aviv suspected to be a terror attack

Israeli strikes on northern Gaza killed at least 22 people, Palestinian officials said Sunday, as Israel stepped up its offensive and aid groups decried a humanitarian catastrophe.

Most of the victims were women and children, Palestinian health officials said.

Israel said it targeted militants.

In a separate development, a truck rammed into a bus stop near the Israeli city of Tel Aviv in what police believe was a terror attack, according to media reports. More than 30 people were injured in the incident, according to Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service.

The attack occurred near the headquarters of Israel’s Mossad spy agency and in an area with several intelligence units of the Israel Defense Forces, according to reports.

The driver of the truck, identified as Rami Natur, an Arab Israeli from the town of Qalansawe in central Israel, was shot dead by a civilian at the scene, the BBC reported.

Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike on a house in Jabalia killed several people and wounded others on Sunday morning, Palestinian medics said. Medics said the attack damaged several houses in Jabalia, the largest of the Gaza Strip’s eight refugee camps, which has been the focus of an Israeli military offensive for more than three weeks.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk and European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell have called on international leaders to take action to end “the human tragedy” taking place in northern Gaza. 

A “catastrophic level of killing, destruction and starvation” afflicts the people in the Gaza Strip as Israel’s military offensive continues, Borrell said Saturday.

Iran’s supreme leader, meanwhile, said Israeli air strikes over the weekend on Iranian sites "should not be exaggerated nor downplayed," while stopping short of calling for retaliation. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said “it is up to the authorities to determine how to convey the power and will of the Iranian people to the Israeli regime and to take actions that serve the interests of this nation and country.”

The Israeli srikes on Iran early Saturday damaged facilities at two military bases, the Associated Press reported. The attack targeted a secretive military base southeast of the Iranian capital that experts in the past have linked to Tehran’s onetime nuclear weapons program and at another base tied to its ballistic missile program, an analysis of satellite photos showed, according to the AP report.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Sunday that Iran is no longer able to effectively use its proxies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon against Israel.

"Over the past year, the security establishment led by the Israel Defense Forces turned the tide of the war and had unprecedented achievements in all arenas of fighting," he said at a memorial ceremony in Jerusalem, Reuters reported.

Gallant said Hamas was no longer functioning as a military network in Gaza, while Hezbollah’s senior command and most of its missile capabilities had been wiped out. He said both groups "are no longer an effective tool" to be used by Iran.