CAIRO, August 12. /TASS/. Israeli forces attacked the neighborhood of al-Zeitoun, located to the south of Gaza City in the Palestinian enclave, Qatar’s Al Jazeera television channel reported on Tuesday.

According to Al Jazeera, several houses were damaged and at least 28 Palestinians were killed as a result of the attack. The number of wounded is being verified.

The situation in the Middle East deteriorated sharply after armed supporters of the Palestinian Hamas movement from the Gaza Strip entered Israeli territory on October 7, 2023, killing residents of border settlements and taking hostages. The radicals called this attack a response to Israel’s actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

Israel blockaded Gaza and launched a military operation in the strip to free the hostages and dismantle Hamas’s fighting capability. In March, Israel resumed fighting in the Gaza Strip, breaking a ceasefire established in January. Several rounds of negotiations mediated by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States failed.