Israeli strikes across Gaza kill more than 60 as both sides weigh ceasefire proposal
Wednesday, 17 July 2024
The latest wave of Israeli airstrikes in southern and central Gaza have killed more than 60 people, with one hitting an Israeli-declared “safe zone” crowded with thousands of displaced people.
The zone covers 60 square kilometres along the Mediterranean coast, where Israel had told fleeing Palestinians to take refuge to escape ground assaults.
The deadliest of the strikes hit a Main Street lined with market stalls outside the southern city of Khan Younis. Officials at the city’s Nasser Hospital said 17 people were killed.
The latest deaths came days after Hamas said cease-fire talks meant to wind down the nine-month-long war would continue even after Israel targeted the militant group’s top military commander, Mohammed Deif, whose fate remained unclear. Israel says another senior Hamas militant was killed in that strike which, according to local officials, killed 90 Palestinians, including children.
International mediators are working to push Israel and Hamas toward agreeing to a deal that would bring a halt to the devastating fighting and set free roughly 120 hostages held by the militant group in Gaza.
The military said it “conducted targeted raids on terror targets” in central Gaza, without elaborating. It did not immediately provide additional details on the targets.
Other strikes hit the Nuseirat and Zawaida refugee camps in central Gaza, killing at least 24 people, including 10 women and four children. An Associated Press journalist saw the bodies, some wrapped in blankets and a floral sheet, as they were taken to Al Aqsa hospital in the nearby town of Deir al-Balah, where hospital officials provided the death count.
The military said that air force planes struck some 40 targets in Gaza over the past day, among them observation posts, Hamas military structures and explosives-rigged buildings.
The war in Gaza, which was sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, has killed more than 38,600 people, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The war has sparked a humanitarian catastrophe in the coastal Palestinian territory, displaced most of its 2.3 million population and triggered widespread hunger.
Hamas’ surprise attack killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and militants took roughly 250 people hostage. About 120 remain in captivity, with about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.
Violence has also surged in the West Bank during the war and on Tuesday a Palestinian stabbed an Israeli policeman, wounding him lightly, before another officer opened fire, killing the assailant, who was identified as a 19-year-old from Gaza.