Israel launches strikes in Gaza ceasefire's latest test as hospitals say 24 killed

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel’s military on Saturday launched airstrikes against Hamas militants in Gaza in the latest test of the ceasefire that began on Oct. 10, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said five senior Hamas members were killed. Health officials in Gaza reported at least 24 people killed and another 54 wounded, including children.

The strikes, which Israel said were in response to gunfire at its troops, came after international momentum on Gaza, with the U.N. Security Council on Monday approving the U.S. blueprint to secure and govern the territory. It authorizes an international stabilization force to provide security, approves a transitional authority to be overseen by President Donald Trump and envisions a possible future path to an independent Palestinian state.

Israel has previously carried out similar waves of strikes after reported attacks on its forces during the ceasefire. At least 33 Palestinians were killed over a 12-hour period Wednesday and Thursday, mostly women and children, health officials said.

One of Saturday's strikes targeted a vehicle, killing 11 and wounding over 20 Palestinians in Gaza City’s Rimal neighborhood, said Rami Mhanna, managing director of Shifa Hospital, where the casualties were taken. The majority of the wounded were children, director Mohamed Abu Selmiya said.

Associated Press video showed children and others inspecting the blackened vehicle, whose top was blown off.

A strike targeting a house near Al-Awda Hospital in central Gaza killed at least three people and wounded 11 others, according to the hospital. It said a strike on a house in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza killed at least seven people including a child and wounded 16 others.

Another strike, targeting a house in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, killed three people, including a woman, according to Al-Aqsa Hospital.

“Suddenly, I heard a powerful explosion. I looked outside and saw smoke covering the entire area. I couldn’t see a thing. I covered my ears and started shouting to the others in the tent to run,” said Khalil Abu Hatab in Deir al-Balah. “When I looked again, I realized the upper floor of my neighbor’s house was gone."

He added: “It’s a fragile ceasefire. This is not a life we can live. There’s no safe place."

Israel’s military in a statement said it launched attacks against Hamas after an “armed terrorist” crossed into an Israeli-held area and shot at troops in southern Gaza. It said no soldiers were hurt. The military said the person had used a road on which humanitarian aid enters the territory, and called it an “extreme violation” of the ceasefire.

In other statements, the military said soldiers killed 11 “terrorists” in the Rafah area and detained six others who tried to flee an underground structure. It also said its forces killed two others who crossed into Israeli-held areas in northern Gaza and advanced toward soldiers.

Israeli forces remain in just over half of Gaza after withdrawing from some areas under the ceasefire.

A senior member of Hamas' political bureau, Izzat al-Rishq, in a statement accused Israel of “fabricating pretexts to evade the (ceasefire) agreement and return to the war of extermination” and said Hamas had urged the U.S. and other mediators to compel Israel to implement the agreement.

The Hamas statement didn't comment on the claim by Netanyahu’s office of five senior members killed.

The war began with the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed some 1,200 people and took over 250 hostage. Almost all of the hostages or their remains have been returned in ceasefires or other deals. The remains of three are still in Gaza.

Israelis rallied again on Saturday night in Tel Aviv, demanding a state commission of inquiry into the events around the Oct. 7 attack.

“The government of Israel failed in its most important mission: to protect its children, to protect its citizens, not to abandon soldiers on the battlefield without rescue and without assistance,” said Rafi Ben Shitrit, father of Staff Sgt. Shimon Alroy Ben Shitrit, who was killed in the attack.

Gaza's Health Ministry says 69,733 Palestinians have been killed and 170,863 injured in Israel's retaliatory offensive. The toll has gone up during the ceasefire both from new Israeli strikes and from the recovery and identification of bodies of people killed earlier in the war.

The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures but has said women and children make up a majority of those killed. The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals, maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by independent experts.

Find more of AP’s Israel-Hamas coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

A Palestinian man carries a wounded girl into al-Shifa Hospital following Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip, Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Yousef Al Zanoun)

Islamic Jihad militants and Egyptian workers search for the bodies of hostages north of Nuseirat, Gaza strip, Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians check the bodies of people killed in Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip at the morgue of Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Relatives mourn over the body of a Palestinian killed in Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians inspect the damage to a house targeted by an Israeli strike in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

An injured Palestinian man is wheeled into Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah following Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip, Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians wheel the body of a man killed in Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip to the morgue at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

INCHEON, South Korea--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 2, 2026--

The Samsung Biologics Labor Union criticized Samsung Biologics after the Incheon Regional Labor Relations Commission (Case No. Incheon 2025 Discrimination 10) ruled the company’s exclusion of contract workers from holiday gift benefits constituted discriminatory treatment. Following this, the company changed counsel from Bae, Kim & Lee LLC to Kim & Chang, South Korea’s largest and most premium corporate law firm, and filed for review before the National Labor Relations Commission.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260402905034/en/

The union does not view this as a minor welfare dispute. It is difficult to justify a company with $1.3 billion in operating profit contesting a $10,000 matter (about $66 per worker for 150 contract workers) rather than accepting the outcome. The core issue is the decision to exclude contract workers over such a trivial cost, and then aggressively defend that discrimination instead of correcting it.

While the company reportedly argued the gift was a discretionary CEO benefit, the union stated that treating a negotiated benefit as unilateral generosity reflects a tendency to view people as costs, not organizational members.

The union added this raises broader concerns about human rights and ESG credibility. Excluding workers based on employment status and fighting labor rulings is inconsistent with the company's publicly promoted ESG values. Furthermore, the union warned that management's pattern of making such irrational decisions is driving labor-management relations into a structural conflict. True ESG credibility requires workplace fairness and respect for human dignity.

Jaesung Park, President of the Samsung Biologics Labor Union, said, “The amount at issue may be small, but the discriminatory mindset revealed is not. Such repeated irrational decisions are destroying foundational trust and creating a structural crisis in our labor relations. What the company needs now is not a determination to fight a small cost to the end, but the common-sense decision to correct discrimination and treat people as members of the organization.”

A written judgment from the Labor Relations Commission confirming that Samsung Biologics discriminated against a fixed-term employee regarding holiday benefits.