The Israeli army said on Thursday it bombed scores of targets in the Gaza Strip as diplomats pressed on with efforts to halt the fighting that Hamas says has killed 20 000 people in the Palestinian territory.
UN relief chief Martin Griffiths called the surging death toll a “tragic and shameful milestone” as the UN Security Council was to again discuss a draft resolution calling for a pause in the bloodiest ever Gaza war.
The army said its aircraft had struck another 230 targets in besieged Gaza over the past day, including a rocket launch site, while ground forces had found weapons inside a school in Jabalia, near Gaza City.
Incoming rocket fire set off air raid sirens in southern Israel and Tel Aviv, where police reported falling shrapnel but no casualties so far after the projectiles were intercepted by air defences.
Hamas’s military wing announced it had launched the Tel Aviv-bound “missile barrage in response to the Israeli massacres against civilians”.
The war began when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing around 1 140 people, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250. The Hamas government’s media office said at least 20 000 people had been killed in the Palestinian territory, with 8 000 children and 6 200 women among the dead.
Hopes that Israel and Hamas could be inching towards another truce and hostage release deal have risen this week as the head of the Palestinian militant group visited Egypt and talks were held in Europe.
Mossad director David Barnea held a “positive meeting” in Warsaw with CIA chief Bill Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, a source familiar with the talks said.
Qatar-based Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh visited Egypt on Wednesday for talks with the country’s intelligence chief, Abbas Kamel. However, the stated positions of Israel and Hamas remain far apart.
A Hamas official said that “a total ceasefire and a retreat of the Israeli occupation army from the Gaza Strip are a precondition for any serious negotiation” on a hostage-prisoner swop. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there could be no ceasefire in Gaza before the “elimination” of Hamas, which Israel, the US and some other countries consider a “terrorist” organisation.
Qatar, backed by Egypt and the US, last month helped broker a week-long truce that saw 80 Israeli hostages freed in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
The UN human rights office in Ramallah said it had received reports that Israeli troops had “summarily killed” at least 11 unarmed Palestinian men in a Gaza neighbourhood this week.
The incident “raises alarm about the possible commission of a war crime”, it said, adding the men were killed in front of their family members in the Al-Rimal area of Gaza City.
An Israeli official rejected the claims as “nothing but blood libel” and “yet another example of the partisan and prejudiced approach against Israel” by the UN body. Israel said its troops had uncovered a tunnel network used by Hamas leaders including Yahya Sinwar, the Gaza chief of the militant group.
The military released footage it said showed the “large network” around Gaza City’s Palestine Square linking hideouts and residences. Israel’s army said three soldiers were killed in the past two days, bringing the death toll of its forces to 137 in the Strip since ground operations began in late October.
The Hamas health ministry said Israeli strikes killed at least 12 Palestinians when houses and a mosque in Rafah were hit. It said later at least 30 more people were killed in an Israeli strike that hit two houses east of Khan Yunis. Crowds swarmed the rubble, digging with shovels and a backhoe to try to free the victims. One blackened body lay under a blue blanket on the blood-soaked ground.
The UN Security Council was trying to pass a resolution calling for a halt in fighting after previous efforts to win Washington’s backing fell short. Israel has rejected the term “ceasefire”, and Washington has used its veto twice to thwart resolutions opposed by Israel since the start of the war.
The United Arab Emirates is calling for “the urgent suspension of hostilities to allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access”.
The war has sparked fears of regional escalation, with exchanges of fire over the Lebanon border, and missiles from Iran-backed Yemeni rebels disrupting Red Sea shipping.
Israel on Thursday said one of its fighter jets and artillery had struck Iran-backed Hezbollah militants overnight in response to incoming fire.
An Israeli strike killed a woman in her eighties in a south Lebanon village on Thursday, Lebanese state media said.
AFP