An Israeli air strike has hit the central Gaza Strip, killing at least 25 Palestinians and wounding dozens more, Palestinian medics said.
The incident on Thursday came as US 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 multi-storey residential building in the Nuseirat refugee camp was just the latest in a series of Israeli attacks throughout Gaza that killed a total of 54 Palestinians since late Wednesday night.
Palestinian officials at two of Gaza’s remaining medical centres, Al-Awda Hospital in the north and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the centre, reported together receiving 25 bodies from the Nuseirat strike – which also wounded 40 people, most of them children.
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.
On Wednesday, the UN General Assembly approved resolutions demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding, although they reflect world opinion.
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 on Thursday evening came as Palestinian medics were still surveying the morning’s deadly toll of fierce Israeli attacks, including on the 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 flattened 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 co-ordination 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 General Assembly adopted two resolutions on the situation in Gaza on Wednesday.
The first resolution affirmed full support for @UNRWA.
The second resolution demanded a ceasefire and the immediate & unconditional release of all hostages.
— United Nations (@UN) December 11, 2024
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 UN agencies for not distributing it. The UN 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.
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, Mr 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.
Mr 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.
Mr Sullivan said “Hamas’s 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.
Israel’s offensive has killed more than 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 more than 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on October 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.
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 Mr Netanyahu and his former defence minister bear responsibility for the war crime of starvation and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts.
Meanwhile, an Israeli strike killed at least one person on Thursday in the Lebanese border town of Khiam, the state news agency said, less than a day after Israeli troops handed the hilltop village back to the Lebanese army in co-ordination with UN peacekeepers.
Khiam is the first Lebanese town Israel has pulled out of since a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah militants began two weeks ago, and marks an important test of the fragile truce.
Lebanon’s news agency did not provide details on who was killed, and the Israeli army said it was looking into reports about the strike.
Lebanese troops deployed in the northern section of the town on Thursday morning and were co-ordinating with UN peacekeepers to finalise Israel’s withdrawal before fully entering into other neighbourhoods.
An Associated Press reporter who visited Khiam on Thursday observed widespread destruction, with most houses reduced to rubble. Entire neighbourhoods were flattened, with collapsed walls and debris scattered across the streets.
Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, sharply criticised Israel for striking the town less than 24 hours after the Lebanese army returned, saying it was “a violation of the pledges made by the parties that sponsored the ceasefire agreement, who must act to curb Israeli aggression”.
The truce was brokered by the US and France.
Israel has previously said the ceasefire deal allows it to use military force against perceived ceasefire violations. Thursday’s strike was among near-daily attacks by Israel during the ceasefire, mostly in southern Lebanon, which have killed at least 29 people and wounded 27 others.
Khiam, which sits on a ridge less than three miles from the border with Israel, saw some of the most intense fighting during the war.
