ISRAEL has broken the Gaza truce nearly 500 times in 44 days, killing hundreds, according to Palestinians.

The Gaza government Media Office said today that Israel must be held fully responsible for the humanitarian and security implications for its repeated ceasefire violations.

The Palestinians said that the Israelis have broken the so-called ceasefire 497 times since it came into force on October 10, killing 342 people, with children, women and the elderly accounting for the majority of the victims.

The Gaza Media Office said: “We condemn in the strongest terms the continued serious and systematic violations of the ceasefire agreement by the Israeli occupation authorities.

“These violations constitute a flagrant breach of international humanitarian law and the humanitarian protocol attached to the agreement.”

The Israelis continued their attacks over the weekend, with at least 24 Palestinians killed and another 54 wounded by Israeli forces on Saturday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that it launched its latest attacks after a Hamas fighter had attacked Israeli soldiers in Israeli-occupied territory inside Gaza’s so-called yellow line.

Hamas demanded Israel reveal the identity of the fighter that allegedly attacked the Israeli forces.

Izzat al-Risheq, a senior member of Hamas’s political bureau, called on the mediators of the Gaza deal and the US administration to pressure Israel to back its claim and to implement the Gaza agreement.

“Israel is fabricating pretexts to evade the agreement and return to a war of extermination,” he said in a statement.

“It is Israel that violates the agreement daily and systematically.”

Meanwhile, Israel carried out an attack on Beirut on Sunday — the first on the Lebanese capital since June.

Prime Minister Netanyahu said today that the target of the attack was the Hezbollah chief of staff Haytham Ali Tabatabai.

Lebanese officials said the attack killed at least one person and wounded 21.

There is no immediate information whether Mr Tabatabai was killed in the attack.

The attack on the busy Haret Hreik neighbourhood in the south of the capital comes as Israeli air attacks over southern Lebanon have intensified in recent weeks, despite a ceasefire that has been in place since last November.

Israel and the US have been piling the pressure on Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah. The Lebanese military issued a plan the government approved in September that would disarm Hezbollah by the end of the year across the country.

Israel claims, without evidence, that Hezbollah is trying to rebuild its military capabilities in southern Lebanon, but the Lebanese government has denied those claims.