A Palestinian from Gaza was buried as the only known victim of Iranian violence against Israel

A 38-year-old Palestinian from Gaza was buried on Wednesday, the only known casualty of Iranian missile fire against Israel, after an Israeli military attack on the Gaza Strip killed at least 60 Palestinians overnight.

Sameh Khadr Hassan Al-Asali was living in a Palestinian security force base in the Israeli-occupied West Bank when he was killed by missile debris during Tuesday’s attack, which Israel said was heavily disrupted by its air defense systems.

Security forces personnel carried the body draped in the red, green, white and black Palestinian flag. The crowd of about 200 mourners was made up of Palestinians from Gaza living in Jericho and local people.

A large part of the rocket was lying on the ground where it fell outside the compound.

About 700 Gazan workers have been living in Jericho, in the Jordan Valley, since the war in Gaza began almost a year ago.

Unlike Israelis, who went into bomb shelters after warning bells went off across the country, many Palestinians in the West Bank came out to watch the missiles and blasts as they were barred from Israeli air defenses.

Video footage captured by a CCTV camera showed a large metal tube falling from the sky and landing on a man walking on the street, apparently killing him instantly.

Reuters was able to verify the location from road layouts, buildings, utility poles and ground markers that corresponded to a satellite image of the area. The date is confirmed by the time code.

Iran launched a barrage of missiles at Israel on Tuesday in retaliation for Israel’s campaign against Tehran’s Hezbollah supporters in Lebanon, and Israel vowed a “brutal response” against its enemy.

Almost a year ago, Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel in support of its ally Hamas in the war in Gaza, which began after the group led the deadliest attack in Israel’s history on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 and took more than that. 250 hostages, according to Israeli officials.

Israel’s ensuing war with the militant group devastated Gaza, displacing most of its 2.3 million people and killing more than 41,600, according to Gaza health authorities.

At least 60 people have died in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza

Israeli military strikes in the Gaza Strip killed at least 60 Palestinians overnight, including at a school sheltering displaced families, medics said, as Israeli tanks approached the Khan Younis areas in the south of the valley.

Israeli tanks stormed a number of areas east and central Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, before slowly retreating, killing at least 40 people and wounding scores of others, according to the official Voice of Palestine radio station and Hamas media.

In Gaza City, at least 22 Palestinians were killed, medics said. Another Israeli strike that hit families at schools in Gaza City killed 17 people, while another hit the Al-Amal Orphan Society, a home for homeless people, killing at least five others, medics said.

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, trapped for nearly a year in a war with Israel, celebrated as they watched dozens of rockets on their way to Israel. Some of those rockets landed in Palestinian territory, but no one was killed, witnesses said.

Anas Al-Masry witnessed the missiles heading towards Israel on Tuesday evening.

“We are answered every day [victims of] massacres and killings, especially in schools and places [areas] where people are being deported,” Al-Masry told CBC News.

“When we see the rockets … the human mind becomes a little calmer – that we hit when they hit.”