ISRAELI bombing killed another 26 people in Gaza today, taking the official Palestinian death toll from the war above 50,000.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said the number of deaths registered by hospitals in the besieged enclave since Israel’s October 2023 invasion began was now 50,021.

The true figure is much higher, as that does not include those buried under rubble or whose deaths have not been verified by a hospital. Gaza’s authorities say 11,000 people are currently missing, presumed dead.

Israeli troops entered the town of Rafah on the Egyptian border, ordering Palestinians there to evacuate to the north, though Israeli forces are bombing targets across the strip and soldiers were also assaulting Beit Hanoon in the north.

Israel tore up a two-month ceasefire with Hamas on March 18, killing hundreds of civilians in surprise bombing raids. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cited Hamas’s refusal to agree to a new ceasefire proposal from US envoy Steve Witkoff, which involved the Islamist resistance group releasing all remaining hostages in return for entering phase two of the original ceasefire deal, in justification.

Hamas, which won the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 and has governed Gaza since 2007, says it is prepared to hand over the 59 remaining hostages, 35 of whom are believed to be dead, if Israel abides by the original agreement and withdraws its forces from Gaza. The group took about 250 hostages during its October 7 2023 attack on Israel, which killed 1,139 people.

But Israeli leaders are emboldened by United States President Donald Trump’s administration’s proposal to ethnically cleanse the whole of Gaza, while opposition figures in the country say Mr Netanyahu needs to continue the war to avoid elections in which he could lose power and face prison if convicted of corruption charges.

Israel killed 150 people in Gaza even while the ceasefire technically held and attacked several towns in the occupied West Bank, driving some 40,000 Palestinians there from their homes. It has also expanded a military occupation of parts of southern Syria following the fall of Bashar al-Assad.

Another front in the war reignited over the weekend, with Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah firing rockets into northern Israel, which responded by bombing Lebanon.