Deir Al-Balah, Gaza Strip (AP) – Over 64,000 Palestinians have been killed in almost two years of war In the Gaza Striplocal health officials said Thursday as Hamas and Israel. Repeated incompatible requests To end the fighting caused by the 2023 attacks by extremist groups.
According to the hospital, the Israeli strike killed 28 people, mostly women and children overnight and Thursday. Gaza city was hit by hunger. Brig. Military spokesman General Effy Deflin said Israeli forces will control 40% of the city and operations will expand “in the coming days.”
in The occupied West BankIsraelis have established new settlements in Palestinian cities, according to the Prevention and Prevention Monitoring Group.
The latest strike came when Israeli forces were operating in parts of Gaza city With a plan to take it all over. The most populous Palestinian city is Approximately 1 million people live there Many of them are already difficult to avoid multiple.
Shifa Hospital in Gaza City Hospital records show that 25 bodies were received, including nine children and six women, after an Israeli strike struck evacuated people. Among the people killed were 10-day-old babies. Three more people have died in southern Gaza, according to Khan Younis’ Nasser Hospital.
Maha Afana said that while she was sleeping with her children in a tent in Gaza city, a strike woke her up in the middle of the night. When she checked them she found her son and daughter’s bodies soaked with blood. “I started screaming,” she said.
The Associated Press footage in the aftermath showed a burnt tent and debris. The sound of further Israeli bombing echoed in the background.
“What did those kids do to Israel? They didn’t have knives or artillery. They were just sleeping,” said Hayam Basous, who lost relatives on the strike.
There were no immediate comments from the Israeli military. Israeli military says it will target only extremists and avoid harming civilians. It denies Hamas’ civilian death, saying that extremists are entrenched in the populated regions.
The death toll will rise
Gaza’s health ministry said 64,231 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war. The latest update includes around 400 people who are estimated to be missing but are believed to have been confirmed dead.
The ministry does not say how many of the people killed in the war are extremists or civilians. It says women and children account for about half of the deaths.
The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and is staffed by medical professionals. That number It is considered a reliable estimate Wartime deaths by UN agencies and many independent experts. Israel challenged them without making its own sacrifice.
Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and sought 251 in an attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Most were then released by ceasefires or other agreements.
There is no visible progress in ceasefire efforts
Hamas issued a statement late Wednesday that he was open to returning all the roughly 20 hostages that Israel believed were alive in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. The difficult challenge of rebuilding Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office dismissed the offer as a “spin” and said the war would continue until all hostages are returned. Israel has complete security controls of territory where private governments are entrusted to others.
I’ll talk about a temporary ceasefire It would have seen some of the hostages have been broken last month. The extremist group later accepted a proposal that said Hamas and Arab intermediaries were nearly identical to the previous ones that had been accepted by Israel, but there was no official indication that the speech had resumed.
Israel and the United States Recently hinted As we pursue a comprehensive deal where all the remaining hostages are released at once.
New settlement in Nishigishi city
The Prevention Watchdog Group said it had established a new settlement in the heart of Palestinian city of Hebron on the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Peace now says it has taken over the main boulevard buildings that government-sponsored settlers use to access the old town. There, hundreds of hard-lined settlers already live in a decades-old settlement protected by Israeli forces, adjacent to the Palestinian home.
There were no immediate comments from the Israeli government.
In the old town of Hebron, there is a major sacred place respected by Jews and Muslims, and is believed to be buried with the biblical patriarch Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and his wife. It was often a scene of Israeli and Palestinian violence.
Israel captured the West Bank along with Gaza and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East War. Palestinians want all three territories for future states – and, together with most of the international community, see a reconciliation Illegal and obstacle to peace.
“The goal of establishing a settlement in the heart of Hebron’s Kasbah is to seize new areas of the city and drive the Palestinians out of them, as did in the city centre around existing settlements,” Peace said.
“The Hebron settlement is the most glimpse of Israel’s rule over the territory. There is no other place on the West Bank. Apartheid is very blatant“He said.
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Kareem Cheayeb reported from Jerusalem from Beirut and Frankel. Associated Press writer Fatma Khaled made a contribution from Cairo.
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