Sisters, 10 and 12, killed by Israeli fire in Gaza

Leaning over his 12-year-old daughter’s body, Rami Essam Abu Jamea kissed her cheek.

“Wake up,” he asked little Rima as tears welled up in his eyes. “Who will bring me water now?”

He then turned and kissed his 10-year-old daughter, Rahaf, who had also been killed, video shot for NBC News on Wednesday shows.

“My daughters are gone,” Abu Jamea, 44, shouted at the crowd gathered around him in the Nasser Hospital in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis. Between crying fits and devastated silences, he told the crowd that the sisters were killed by an Israeli missile that hit near the family’s tent in Al-Mawasi camp.

When his wife, Sanaa Abdullah Buwaid, joined him a short while later, the pair embraced for a long time and wept after losing what Abu Jamea said were their only children.

The sisters were among at least 23 Palestinians killed in Gaza on Wednesday, most of them women and children, hospital officials say.

The Israeli military said it struck Al-Mawasi, in southern Gaza, after militants fired on its soldiers in the north of the Strip, seriously wounding one of them. The troops, it said in a statement, were on the east, or the Israeli-controlled side, of the “yellow line” — the boundary the country’s military has marked out with concrete blocks of that color to delineate it from the 53% of Gaza it still controls.

Armored units and the country’s air force conducted “strikes in the area,” the statement added. The wounded Israeli soldier was evacuated to a hospital and his family was notified, according to the statement.

In a separate statement, the Israeli military said it was targeting a Hamas commander who led the attack on Nir Oz kibbutz, one of the worst-hit communities on Oct. 7, 2023.

“Prior to and during the strike, steps were taken in order to mitigate harm to civilians as much as possible, including the use of surveillance and precise munitions,” the statement added. “The IDF regrets any harm caused to uninvolved civilians.”

In another statement, the Israeli military said it had “eliminated” a separate militant who it says killed Corporal Noa Marciano, who served in the IDF’s Combat Intelligence Collection Corps, in Hamas captivity.

Meanwhile, at least 11 people, most from the same family, were killed in the Tuffah neighborhood of northern Gaza, The Associated Press quoted an official at Shifa Hospital as saying. The dead included two parents, their 10-day-old girl, her 5-month-old cousin and their grandmother, the AP reported.

The nearly two dozen killed on Wednesday were the latest Palestinians fatalities since a U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal came into effect on Oct. 10, with more than 520 people dying since then, according to the health ministry in the enclave which is still nominally run by Hamas.

Although the heaviest fighting has subsided in Gaza, it has been marred by repeated flare-ups despite the truce.

“The bombing and airstrikes are still ongoing, targeting homes and civilian areas,” Dr. Mohamed Abu Selmiya, said in a telephone call. Selmiya is the director of the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, which sits in the north of the enclave.

Israel’s military has repeatedly said its strikes are in response to Hamas ceasefire violations or militant attacks on its soldiers.

Eight Arab and Muslim countries, including mediators Egypt and Qatar, recently condemned what they called Israel’s “repeated violations” of the deal.

Other key elements of the deal appear to have stalled, including the deployment of an international security force, the disarmament of Hamas and the reconstruction of Gaza, none of which were given a timeline to wrap up.

But while the sporadic fighting continues, other parts of the ceasefire agreement have edged forward.

Hamas has returned all the hostages it was holding — living and dead — and Israel has released several thousand Palestinian prisoners. Also, an increasing amount of food and humanitarian aid has been allowed to enter the enclave.

The Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt partially reopened Monday, allowing some movement of people in and out of the Palestinian enclave and enabling small numbers of people in need of medical aid to leave for treatment. Others were allowed to return to the territory.

The reopening is a key pillar of President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza and came just days after the remains of the last hostage held in the enclave were returned to Israel.

Almost 72,000 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not specify how many were fighters or civilians.

The war began on Oct. 7, 2023, with the Hamas-led terror attack on southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people, and saw 251 people taken hostage.