Over 100 killed including children as Israel launches fresh airstrikes on Gaza ignoring ceasefire deal | 10 updates

Israel on Monday launched airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, southern Lebanon, and southern Syria as reported by the Associated Press citing local authorities.

Here are the top ten updates:

1. At least 100 Palestinians including many children were killed in Isreaeli airstrikes across Gaza Strip, Reuters reported. The Israeli military said it was targeting militants plotting attacks. The airstrikes were the latest in what have been frequent and often deadly attacks by Israeli forces during the fragile ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon, AP reported.

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2. Israel has halted the entry of food, medicine, fuel, and other supplies into Gaza for the past two weeks, demanding that Hamas agree to modifications in the ceasefire agreement between the two sides.

3. In Syria, Israel seized a zone in the south after the fall of longtime autocrat Bashar Assad in December. Israel says it is a preemptive security measure against the former Islamist insurgents who now run Syria, though their transitional government has not expressed threats against Israel, AP reported.

4. The strikes hit a residential area in the southern Syrian city of Daraa, killing three people and wounding 19 others, including four children, a woman and three civil defense volunteers, the Syrian civil defense agency said. It said two ambulances were damaged. Other strikes hit military positions near the city.

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5. The Israeli military stated that it was targeting military command centers and locations in southern Syria that housed weapons and vehicles belonging to Assad's forces. According to the military, the presence of these materials posed a threat to Israel.

In central Gaza, two strikes hit around the urban refugee camp of Bureij. One struck a school serving as a shelter for displaced Palestinians, killing a 52-year-old man and his 16-year-old nephew, according to officials at nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the casualties were taken. The Israeli military said it struck militants planting explosives.

An earlier strike killed three men in Bureij. The Israeli military said the men were trying to plant an explosive device in the ground near Israeli troops. Gaza's Hamas-led government said the men were collecting firewood.

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In Lebanon, Israel said it struck two members of the Hezbollah militant group in the southern Lebanese town of Yohmor, who it said were “observation operatives.” Lebanon's state news agency reported two people killed in the strike and two wounded.

The military later said it carried out further strikes on Hezbollah sites in Lebanon, without specifying where. A U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect in late November ending the 14-month war between the two sides, and each side has repeatedly accused the other of violating the deal.

Since the ceasefire in Gaza began in mid-January, Israeli forces have killed dozens of Palestinians who the military says approached its troops or entered unauthorized areas.

Still, the deal has tenuously held without an outbreak of wide violence. The ceasefire's first phase saw an exchange of some hostages held by Hamas in return for the freeing of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been trying to mediate the next steps in the ceasefire.

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Israel wants Hamas to release half of the remaining hostages in return for a promise to negotiate a lasting truce. Hamas instead wants to follow the ceasefire deal reached by the two sides, which calls for negotiations to begin on the ceasefire's more difficult second phase, in which the remaining hostages would be released and Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza. Hamas is believed to have 24 living hostages and the bodies of 35 others. 

(With inputs from AP)