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Israel Launches New Gaza Strikes after Weekend Attack Kills Scores in Safe Zone

Palestinians gather near damages after an Israeli strike at a tent camp in Al-Mawasi area, amid Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip July 13, 2024. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
Palestinians gather near damages after an Israeli strike at a tent camp in Al-Mawasi area, amid Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip July 13, 2024. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
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Israel Launches New Gaza Strikes after Weekend Attack Kills Scores in Safe Zone

Palestinians gather near damages after an Israeli strike at a tent camp in Al-Mawasi area, amid Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip July 13, 2024. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
Palestinians gather near damages after an Israeli strike at a tent camp in Al-Mawasi area, amid Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip July 13, 2024. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

Israel struck the southern and central Gaza Strip on Monday to put more pressure on Hamas, following a weekend strike targeting the group's leadership which killed scores of Palestinians camped in a designated "safe zone".
Two days after the Israeli strike turned a crowded swathe of Mawasi near the Mediterranean coast into a charred wasteland littered with burning cars and mangled bodies, displaced survivors said they had no idea where they should go next, said Reuters.
"Those moments as the ground shook underneath my feet and the dust and sand rose to the sky and I saw dismembered bodies - was like nothing I have seen in my life," said Aya Mohammad, 30, a market seller in Mawasi, reached by mobile text message.
"Where to go is what everybody asks, and no one has the answer."
Mawasi on the western outskirts of Khan Younis has been sheltering hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled to the area after Israel declared it a safe zone. Israel said its strike there on Saturday targeted Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif, an architect of the Oct. 7 assault on Israeli towns and villages that triggered the Gaza war.
Palestinian officials say at least 90 people were killed on Saturday and many hundreds wounded. Reuters journalists at the scene filmed carnage, with residents carrying the wounded and dead amid flames and smoke.
Further south in Rafah, main focus of Israel's advance since May, residents reported renewed fighting on Monday. Israeli forces in western and central parts of the city blew up several homes, they said. Medical officials said they recovered 10 bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in eastern areas of the city, some of which had already begun to decompose.
The military also stepped up aerial and tank shelling in central Gaza in the Al-Bureij and Al-Maghazi historic refugee camps. Health officials said five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike on a house in Maghazi camp.
The Israeli military said the air forces struck dozens of Palestinian military targets across Gaza, killing many gunmen. It said forces killed gunmen in Rafah and central Gaza, sometimes in close combat.
A statement from the Al-Quds brigade, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad militant group, said its fighters were engaged in fierce battles in the Yabna camp in Rafah.
TALKS
Saturday's carnage in Mawasi, one of the deadliest Israeli strikes of the war, has overshadowed negotiations that both sides had previously described as the closest yet to a lasting ceasefire. A senior Hamas official said on Sunday the group had not walked out of the talks despite the Mawasi strike.
Israel says another senior commander was killed in the strike but it has not yet confirmed the fate of Deif. Hamas officials have denied Deif was killed.
The Gaza health ministry said at least 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's military offensive since Oct. 7. It does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants but officials say most of the dead throughout the war have been civilians.
Israel says it has lost 326 soldiers in Gaza and says at least a third of the Palestinian fatalities are fighters.
The war began after a Hamas-led attack inside Israel on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took more than 250 hostage to Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.

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Arab World

Gaza Ceasefire Still Elusive as Negotiators Try to Hammer out Deal

This picture taken from the Israeli side of the border with the Gaza Strip shows smoke plumes rising from explosions above destroyed buildings in the northern Gaza Strip on January 14, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
This picture taken from the Israeli side of the border with the Gaza Strip shows smoke plumes rising from explosions above destroyed buildings in the northern Gaza Strip on January 14, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
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Gaza Ceasefire Still Elusive as Negotiators Try to Hammer out Deal

This picture taken from the Israeli side of the border with the Gaza Strip shows smoke plumes rising from explosions above destroyed buildings in the northern Gaza Strip on January 14, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
This picture taken from the Israeli side of the border with the Gaza Strip shows smoke plumes rising from explosions above destroyed buildings in the northern Gaza Strip on January 14, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

Negotiators were trying to hammer out the final details of a complex, phased ceasefire in Gaza on Wednesday after marathon talks in Qatar aiming to end a conflict that has inflicted widespread death and destruction and upended the Middle East.

More than eight hours of talks in Doha had fueled optimism. Officials from mediators Qatar, Egypt and the US as well as Israel and Hamas said on Tuesday that an agreement for a truce in the besieged Palestinian enclave and the release of hostages was closer than ever.

But a senior Hamas official told Reuters late on Tuesday that the Palestinian group had not yet delivered its response because it was still waiting for Israel to submit maps showing how its forces would withdraw from Gaza.

During months of on-off talks to achieve a truce in the devastating 15-month-old war, both sides have previously said they were close to a ceasefire only to hit last-minute obstacles. The broad outlines of the current deal have been in place since mid-2024.

If successful, the planned phased ceasefire could halt fighting that has decimated Gaza, killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, displaced most of the enclave's pre-war population of 2.3 million and is still killing dozens of people a day.

That in turn could ease tensions across the wider Middle East, where the war has fueled conflict in the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq, and raised fears of all-out war between Israel and Iran.

Israel launched its assault in Gaza after Hamas-led fighters stormed across its borders on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Since then, Israeli forces have killed more than 46,700 Palestinians in Gaza, according to health officials in the enclave.

Palestinians were once again hoping the latest talks would deliver some relief from Israeli airstrikes, and ease a humanitarian crisis.

"We are waiting for the ceasefire and the truce. May God complete it for us in goodness, bless us with peace, and allow us to return to our homes," said Amal Saleh, 54, a Gazan displaced by the war.

"Even if the schools are bombed, destroyed, and ruined, we just want to know that we are finally living in peace."

Under the plan, Israel would recover around 100 remaining hostages and bodies from among those captured in the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas that precipitated the war. In return it would free Palestinian detainees.

The latest draft is complicated and sensitive. Under its terms, the first steps would feature a six-week initial ceasefire.

The plan also includes a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from central Gaza and the return of displaced Palestinians to north Gaza.

The deal would also require Hamas to release 33 Israeli hostages along with other steps.

The draft stipulates negotiations over a second phase of the agreement to begin by the 16th day of phase one. Phase two includes the release of all remaining hostages, a permanent ceasefire and the complete withdrawal of Israeli soldiers.

Even if the warring sides agree to the deal on the table, that agreement still needs further negotiation before there is a final ceasefire and the release of all the hostages

If it all goes smoothly, the Palestinians, Arab states and Israel still need to agree on a vision for post-war Gaza, a massive task involving security guarantees for Israel and billions of dollars in investment for rebuilding.

ISRAELI ATTACKS

Despite the efforts to reach a ceasefire, the Israeli military, the Shin Bet internal intelligence agency and the air force attacked about 50 targets throughout Gaza over the last 24 hours, Shin Bet and the military said in a statement on Wednesday.

Israeli strikes killed at least 13 Palestinians across the enclave. Those included seven people who were in a school sheltering displaced families in Gaza City, and six others killed in separate airstrikes on houses in Deir Al-Balah, Bureij camp and Rafah, medics said.

Families of hostages in Israel were caught between hope and despair.

"We can't miss this moment. This is the last moment; we can save them," said Hadas Calderon, whose husband Ofer and children Sahar and Erez were abducted.

Israel says 98 hostages are being held in Gaza, about half of whom are believed to be alive. They include Israelis and non-Israelis. Of the total, 94 were seized in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel and four have been held in Gaza since 2014.