Monday, 23 December 2024
Monday, 23 December 2024
Dozens of people were killed and wounded in an Israeli strike on a house in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip at dawn on Sunday, Palestinian medics said.
Footage circulating on social media, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed about a dozen bodies wrapped in blankets and laid on the ground at a hospital. Residents said the building that was hit had housed at least 30 people.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA and Hamas media put the number of people killed at 32. There was no immediate confirmation of the tally by the territory's health ministry.
The Civil Emergency Service says its operations have been halted by an ongoing Israeli raid into two towns and a refugee camp in northern Gaza that began on Oct. 5. It could not provide a figure for those killed in the attack.
Israel says it sent forces into Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun in the north of the enclave to fight Hamas militants waging attacks from there and to prevent them from regrouping. It says its troops have killed hundreds of militants in those areas since the new offensive began.
In Gaza City, an Israeli airstrike on a house in the Sabra neighbourhood killed Wael Al-Khour, an official at the Welfare Ministry, and seven other members of his family including his wife and children on Sunday, medics and relatives said.
The Israeli military said it was looking into the reports on the strike in Jabalia and in the Sabra neighbourhood.
Efforts to conclude a ceasefire between the two warring sides have so far stalled, with Israel and Hamas trading blame. Hamas wants an agreement that ends the war and a prisoner-for-hostages deal, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the war will only stop once Hamas is eradicated.
Qatar, which has been seeking to negotiate a ceasefire along with Egypt and the U.S., has told Hamas and Israel it will stall its efforts until both sides show "willingness and seriousness" to resume talks, its foreign ministry said on Saturday.
The three nations have been working for months on fruitless talks between the warring sides in Gaza and any disengagement from that process could further complicate efforts to reach a deal.
There was no official response from Hamas or Israel.
The war erupted when Hamas gunmen attacked Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and seizing another 253 hostages, by Israeli tallies. Israel's military campaign has levelled much of Gaza and killed around 43,500 Palestinians, Palestinian health officials say.
Israel launched its offensive in response to the attack on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas gunmen stormed border defences and rampaged through Israeli communities killing 1,200 people and seizing around 250 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
On-off talks for a ceasefire and hostage release deal mediated by the United States, Egypt and Qatar have made little progress and on Saturday a Qatari official said Doha would pull out of negotiations unless the two sides committed more fully.
The official said Qatar would stop trying to mediate talks until Hamas and Israel "demonstrate a sincere willingness to return to the negotiating table".
That followed a U.S. official saying on Friday that Washington had asked Qatar to close the Hamas office in Doha after the group rejected a ceasefire proposal.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri dismissed the report as "an American attempt to send a message of pressure to the movement through the media".
GAZA STRIKES
The U.N. Human Rights Office said on Friday that nearly 70% of fatalities it had verified in Gaza were women and children. Israel's diplomatic mission in Geneva, where the office is based, said it categorically rejected the report, which it said did not accurately reflect realities on the ground.
Strikes overnight and on Saturday morning killed at least 40 Palestinians across the enclave, health officials said. In one airstrike on a school sheltering displaced families in Gaza City six people including two journalists were killed, while another killed two at a tent inside Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza Strip, they said.
The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said the deaths of Mohammad and Zahara Abu Skhaila raised the number of journalists killed by Israeli fire to 188 since Oct. 7, 2023.
Israel's military did not immediately respond on Saturday to a request for comment on strikes on areas where displaced people were sheltering.
It says Hamas fighters hide among the civilian population and it hits them when it sees them. Hamas denies hiding among civilians.
For the past month, Israel's main military focus has been in northern Gaza, the first part of the tiny, crowded territory that its troops overran early in the conflict last year.
A committee of global food security experts warned on Friday that there was a strong likelihood of imminent famine in northern Gaza amid the renewed fighting.
Israel's military said 11 trucks of food, water and medical supplies had been delivered into the north Gaza areas of Jabalia and Beit Hanoun on Saturday and said the famine assessment was based on "partial, biased data".
It said it was preparing to open the Kissufim crossing into Gaza to expand aid routes.
