(First paragraph)
*
8 killed, 15 injured in Israeli airstrike at Jabalia refugee camp
*
Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah battle Israeli forces with rockets and bombs
*
CIA Director Burns: More detailed U.S. ceasefire proposal to be released in coming days
*
UN vaccinates more than half of 640,000 children in conflict-hit Gaza Strip
Nidal Al-Mughrabi
CAIRO, Sept 7 – At least 61 people have been killed in a 48-hour period in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip, local doctors said on Saturday, as Israeli forces battle Hamas-led militants in the area.
Eleven months into the war, multiple rounds of diplomatic talks have failed to reach a ceasefire agreement to end the conflict and release the Israeli and foreign hostages being held in Gaza, as well as the many Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.
At least eight people were killed and 15 wounded in an Israeli airstrike on the Halima al-Sadia school compound, which is providing shelter for displaced people from Jabalia city refugee camp, medical sources said.
The Israeli military said the attack targeted a Hamas command center on the compound. It has repeatedly accused Hamas of using civilians and civilian infrastructure for military purposes, a charge Hamas denies.
Five more people were killed in an attack on a house in Gaza City.
Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah militants said they engaged Israeli forces with anti-tank rockets and mortars in Gaza City, the centre and the south, and in some incidents detonated bombs targeting tanks and other military vehicles.
Both sides continue to blame each other for the failure of mediators including Qatar, Egypt and the United States to broker a ceasefire. The United States is preparing new proposals, but the gap between the two sides remains so large that a breakthrough is unlikely. The US’s chief negotiator, CIA Director William Burns, said at an event in London that a more detailed proposal would be forthcoming.
Polio vaccination continues as fighting pauses
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday that both Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which controlled the Gaza Strip before the war and is responsible for the Oct. 7 massacre of Jews inside Israel that sparked the hostilities, had an obligation to make concessions to reach an agreement.
On Saturday, Hamas leader Hossam Badran said the group was making no new demands and would continue to abide by the proposal submitted by the United States on July 2, accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of imposing new conditions that would not end the war.
Prime Minister Netanyahu claims that it is Hamas that has created an unacceptable situation.
Despite the standoff, the UN has been working with local health authorities on a campaign to vaccinate 640,000 children in Gaza after the first polio cases were reported in the area in nearly 25 years, and a temporary pause in the fighting has allowed the campaign to continue.
UN officials said progress had been made, with supplies reaching more than half of the children in need in southern and central Gaza in the first two phases.
On Sunday, the campaign will move to the northern Gaza Strip. The second dose is required four weeks after the first.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict was sparked by a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 that left 1,200 people dead and around 250 taken hostage, according to an Israeli tally.
Subsequent Israeli attacks on the enclave killed more than 40,900 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, forced almost all of its 2.3 million residents to flee, triggered a famine crisis and led to genocide charges by the International Court of Justice, which Israel denies.
This article has been generated from an automated news agency feed without any modifications to the text.