DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (news agencies) — An Israeli airstrike hit the central Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing at least 25 Palestinians and wounding dozens more, Palestinian medics said, as U.S. President Joe Biden’s two top national security officials were in the region making a renewed push for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire.
The strike on a multistory residential building in the Nuseirat refugee camp was just the latest in a series of Israeli attacks throughout Gaza that killed at least 54 Palestinians since late Wednesday night.
Palestinian officials at two of Gaza’s remaining medical centers, Al-Awda Hospital in the north and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the center, reported together receiving 25 bodies from the Nuseirat strike — which also wounded 40 people, most of them children.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the deadly strike. Israel is trying to eliminate Hamas, which led the attack on southern Israel in October 2023 that sparked the war in Gaza. The Israeli military says Hamas militants hide among Gaza’s civilian population.
The U.N. General Assembly’s member nations approved a new resolution this week demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding, although they do reflect world opinion — the vote Wednesday was 158-9, with 13 abstentions.
Photos from the scene in Nuseirat sent to journalists showed a completely collapsed building with people walking through its mangled and charred remains, smoke rising from piles of belongings strewn over the rubble. Palestinian rescuers were searching for more bodies trapped beneath the rubble.
The strikes Thursday evening came as Palestinian medics were still surveying the morning’s deadly toll of fierce Israeli attacks, including on Nuseirat camp. Palestinian medical officials had reported at least 28 people killed earlier in the day, including seven children and a woman. One of the strikes flatted a house in Nuseirat, according to Al-Aqsa Hospital in the nearby city of Deir al-Balah, where the bodies were taken.
Two other strikes killed 15 men who were part of local aid coordination committees set up by displaced Palestinians and the Hamas-run Interior Ministry, according to health officials at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis. Eight of the men were killed in an attack near the southern border town of Rafah and the remaining seven were killed by a strike in Khan Younis.
The committees aim to establish secure aid convoys, which often face challenges such as looting, hoarding and profiteering in their efforts to deliver humanitarian supplies to Palestinians facing the risk of famine.
Israel says it allows enough aid to enter and blames U.N. agencies for not distributing it. The U.N. says Israeli restrictions, and the breakdown of law and order after Israel repeatedly targeted the Hamas-run police force, make it extremely difficult to operate in the territory.
In Gaza’s isolated and devastated north, Awda Hospital said an orthopedic doctor, Saeed Jouda, was shot in the head and killed Thursday morning. The Health Ministry said the doctor was killed by an armed quadcopter drone as he was traveling from Kamal Adwan Hospital to treat patients at Awda Hospital.
The two medical facilities are in northern towns where Israel has waged a blistering offensive against Hamas militants since early October, allowing in almost no humanitarian aid and ordering tens of thousands to flee to nearby Gaza City. Experts have warned that the north may be experiencing famine.
The latest bombardment came as Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, was holding official meetings in Israel as signs emerge that long-stalled negotiations between Israel and Hamas could regain momentum. On Thursday, Sullivan revived hopes for a deal, telling reporters in Jerusalem that Israel’s ceasefire in Lebanon has helped clear the way for another deal to end the war in Gaza.
Sullivan plans to travel next to Qatar and Egypt, key mediators in the ceasefire talks, as the Biden administration makes a final push on negotiations before Donald Trump is inaugurated.
Sullivan said “Hamas’ posture at the negotiating table did adapt” after Israel decimated the leadership of its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon and reached a ceasefire there. “We believe it puts us in a position to close this negotiation,” he said.
Last month, the U.S. vetoes a Security Council resolution demanding an immediate Gaza ceasefire, objecting that the resolution did not link the truce to an immediate release of hostages taken by Hamas. The council’s 14 other members supported the resolution.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 people. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive has killed over 44,800 Palestinians in Gaza, more than half of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many were combatants. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces an international arrest warrant for alleged war crimes in the war in Gaza. The International Criminal Court found there were reasonable grounds to believe that Netanyahu and his former defense minister bear responsibility for the war crime of starvation and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts.
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