Since the ceasefire agreement was announced yesterday, at least 71 people have been killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza, most of them women and children, the Gaza Strip Civil Defense said this morning.

Another 200 people were injured, said spokesman Mahmoud Basal.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News. Israel has repeatedly denied attacking civilians throughout the war, saying it was aimed at destroying Hamas.

At least 15 people were killed and more than 20 injured in attacks on an apartment block north of Gaza City last night, Civil Defense said earlier on Telegram.

Two more bodies were recovered in the center of Gaza City, Civil Defense said this morning. It also said five other members of the same family were killed and more than 10 injured after a house was hit west of Gaza City.

A senior Hamas official said the group stood by the ceasefire deal reached yesterday after Israel claimed the group was not honoring the agreement.

“Hamas is committed to the ceasefire agreement announced by the mediators,” Izzat al-Rishq said in a Telegram post.

Another senior official, Sami Abu Zuhri, told Al-Arabiya TV that “there is no basis for Netanyahu’s claims that the movement has withdrawn from the terms of the ceasefire agreement.”

He claimed that Israel “wants to create a state of tension at a critical time and we demand that it commits to implementing the agreement.”

Now that Israel and Hamas have signed a ceasefire, “the priority must be to alleviate the enormous suffering,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

“The United Nations stands ready to support the implementation of this agreement and step up the delivery of sustained humanitarian assistance to the countless Palestinians who continue to suffer,” he told reporters yesterday, calling the humanitarian situation “catastrophic.”

“It is imperative that this ceasefire removes the significant security and political barriers to the delivery of assistance across the Gaza Strip so that we can support a significant increase in urgent life-saving humanitarian assistance,” Guterres said.

Adi Alexander, whose son Edan is among the American hostages held by Hamas, spoke to NBC News after the ceasefire and hostage-taking agreement were announced.

Israel has said its cabinet, which was expected to meet today, would not vote on the ceasefire deal, claiming Hamas had broken and created a “last-minute crisis.”

Hamas said in a statement it was “committed to the ceasefire agreement announced by the mediators.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office had said the militant group had broken parts of the agreement “to extract last-minute concessions.” It was not clear what aspects of the deal Israel was referring to.

Israel’s Cabinet “will not meet until mediators inform Israel that Hamas has accepted all elements of the agreement,” the prime minister’s office said.

A ceasefire can come into force on Friday at the earliest, after it is approved by the Israeli cabinet. The country’s Supreme Court would then have 24 hours to uphold an appeal and the first hostages would be released on Sunday, a diplomatic source in Washington previously told NBC News.