Gaza rescuers say 23 killed in latest Israeli strikes

PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: Israel pounded the Gaza Strip today, killing at least 23 people according to rescuers, nearly 15 months into the war with Hamas Palestinian fighters.

The latest deaths come after Israel late yesterday said indirect negotiations had resumed in Qatar for a truce and hostage release deal.

An air strike on a house in northern Gaza’s Sheikh Radwan area killed at least 11 people early today, according to civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal.

He said the victims included women and children.

“Rescuers are still searching for five people trapped under the rubble of the house,” he said, adding his crew members were using “bare hands” in the effort.

The Israeli military said today it had struck more than 100 “terror targets” in Gaza over the past two days, marking an apparent escalation in its assault.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said a total of 88 people were killed over the previous 24 hours.

In one strike, five people died when the house of the Abu Jarbou family was struck in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, rescuers said.

AFP footage from another strike showed rescuers transporting bodies and injured people to a hospital.

In one scene, a medic attempted to resuscitate a wounded man inside an ambulance, while another carried an injured child to the hospital.

Relatives cried over the bodies of two men wrapped in white shrouds, the images showed.

Several of the strikes targeted sites from which militants had been firing projectiles into Israel in recent days, the military said.

A military statement reported the air force hit more than 100 targets throughout the strip “and eliminated dozens of Hamas terrorists” in the past two days.

Last week, Israeli defence minister Israel Katz warned of intensified strikes if the incoming rocket fire continued, and Israeli hostages still held by rebels in Gaza are not freed.

The renewed fire from Gaza has triggered air raid sirens in Israeli communities that were largely destroyed during Hamas’s October 2023 attack that triggered the war.

Rocket fire had become less frequent as the war dragged on but intensified since late December as Israel continues a three-month major land and air offensive in the territory’s north.

The escalation coincides with indirect negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage release deal that both sides said were to resume this weekend in Qatar.

Mediators Qatar, Egypt and the US have tried for months to strike a deal to end the war and secure the release of dozens of hostages held in Gaza.

The latest effort comes just days before Donald Trump takes office as president of the US on Jan 20.

“Efforts are underway to free the hostages,” Katz told relatives of a hostage yesterday, according to his office.

His comments followed the release of a video by Hamas showing a teenage Israeli soldier, Liri Albag, in which she called on the Israeli government to secure her release.

AFP has not been able to verify the footage.

The Gaza war began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct 7, 2023, resulting in the deaths of 1,208 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to official Israeli data.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed 45,805 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which the United Nations finds reliable.

In a related development, Katz threatened Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, accusing it of violating ceasefire terms that halted their war on Nov 27.

He stated that Hezbollah had still not withdrawn “beyond the Litani River” in southern Lebanon, as stipulated in the ceasefire deal.

“If this condition is not met, there will be no agreement and Israel will be forced to act on its own to ensure the safe return of residents of the north to their homes,” Katz said.

Yesterday, Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem accused Israel of violating the ceasefire agreement, which the US and France help to monitor.

Qassem said Hezbollah was prepared to respond even before the expiry of a 60-day deadline for Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon.

Almost two weeks ago, UN peacekeepers and Lebanon’s prime minister called on Israel’s army to speed up its withdrawal from southern Lebanon.