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Israeli military strikes killed at least 40 Palestinians overnight and on Friday in the Gaza Strip, medics said, as efforts to revive Gaza ceasefire talks received a boost with officials from the Palestinian group Hamas headed to Cairo for a new round of talks.
Medics said they had recovered 19 bodies of Palestinians killed in northern areas of Nuseirat, one of the enclave's eight long-standing refugee camps.
Later on Friday, an Israeli air strike killed at least 10 Palestinians in a house in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, medics said.
Others were killed in the northern and southern areas of the Gaza Strip, medics added. There was no fresh statement by the Israeli military on Friday, but on Thursday it said its forces were continuing to "strike terror targets as part of the operational activity in the Gaza Strip".
Israeli tanks had entered northern and western areas of Nuseirat on Thursday. They withdrew from northern areas on Friday but remained active in western parts of the camp. The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said teams were unable to respond to distress calls from residents trapped in their homes.
Dozens of Palestinians returned on Friday to areas where the army had retreated to check on damage to their homes.
Medics and relatives covered up dead bodies, including of women, that lay on the road with blankets or white shrouds and carried them away on stretchers.
"Forgive me, my wife, forgive me, my Ibtissam, forgive me, my dear," one grief-stricken man moaned through tears beside her corpse, laid out on a stretcher on the ground.
Medics said an Israeli drone on Friday had killed Ahmed Al-Kahlout, head of the Intensive Care Unit at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, where the army has been operating since early October.
Contacted by Reuters, the Israeli military said it was unaware of a strike occurring in this location or timeframe.
Kamal Adwan Hospital is one of three medical facilities on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip that barely function now due to shortages of medical, fuel, and food supplies. Most of its medical staff have been detained or expelled by the Israeli army, health officials say.
The Palestinian civil emergency service, Hamas and the Palestinian official news agency WAFA put the number of Palestinians killed in two Israeli strikes in Beit Lahiya in the past 24 hours at 70. There was no immediate confirmation of the figure by the local health ministry.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and accused Israel of "using the weapon of starvation against the people (in northern Gaza) to displace them from their land and homes."
The Israeli army said forces operating in Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and Jabalia since Oct. 5 aimed to prevent Hamas militants from regrouping and waging attacks from those areas. Residents said the army was depopulating the towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun as well as the Jabalia refugee camp.
CEASEFIRE EFFORT TO RESUME
Late on Friday, two Hamas officials told Reuters a Hamas delegation would arrive in Cairo on Saturday for talks with Egyptian officials. The visit comes days after the U.S. said it would begin new efforts with Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey to revive Gaza ceasefire talks.
Months of efforts to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza have yielded scant progress, and negotiations are now on hold.
A ceasefire in the parallel conflict between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, took effect before dawn on Wednesday, bringing a halt to hostilities that had escalated sharply in recent months and had overshadowed the Gaza conflict.
Announcing the Lebanon accord on Tuesday, U.S. President Joe Biden said he would now renew his push for a ceasefire agreement in Gaza and he urged Israel and Hamas to seize the moment.
Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 44,300 people and displaced nearly all the enclave's population at least once, Gaza officials say. Vast swathes of the territory are in ruins.
The Hamas-led militants who attacked southern Israeli communities 13 months ago, triggering the war, killed some 1,200 people and captured more than 250 hostages, Israel has said.
© Thomson Reuters 2024.
5 Comments
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NB
The madness in the Middle East must stop. The healing of the region must be based on the recognition that there are two nations there. Both nations have roots in the land. Both nations deserve to live and to exist. Both nations deserve to have security, to fulfill their sentiments towards the land as much and possible and to have enough space for agriculture, housing and economy.
sakurasuki
As long occupier got their immunity and US tax payer money, they'll keep doing that.
Just be careful occupier never want peace, from the past usually negotiator really short lived. They just being eliminated by occupier.
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2024/0801/hamas-assassination-gaza-cease-fire-negotiations
John-San
The Middle East and most of Asia is dominated by Islam and has been since it,s concept, bringing peace and and harmony to the multitude of tribes and sects. Over his timeline the west have conquered and dominate this region but could never sustain a dominate foothold but have always been represented by the Christian population. Absent during the timeline of 97% was Judi but the last 70 years we witness a new form of Judi/ zionism with an unwelcome intrudence. 1400 years of islam dominance of the Middle East by Islam and growing bigger where others are declining indicates to any sensible person they not moving.
u_s__reamer
Peace will never come from Israel's mendacious Western sponsors and enablers, nor from the bloodthirsty Zionist landgrabbers whose intentions they have made no secret of. Peace will only be possible at the price of Israeli blood and treasure and world pressure on the pariah settler-colonialist state to share the land with the native population of Arabs.
Aly Rustom
Absolutely.
That's true too.