DEIR ALBALA, Gaza Strip (AP) – At least 21 people, including at least two children, were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, hospital staff said, while renewed efforts to negotiate a ceasefire in Qatar was in progress. War lasting about 15 months.
Hours after Hamas released a video showing one of the hostages still being held in Gaza, thousands of people in Israel rallied again to call for a ceasefire agreement. Such videos, as well as increased airstrikes, are seen as an attempt to assert pressure during talks.
In Khan Yunis, south of Gaza, a young boy cried out for his father, and a woman placed her body over one of the bodies wrapped in white plastic. According to Nasser Hospital staff, there were three airstrikes in the city, damaging cars, homes and people on the streets.
The Civil Defense, a first-response force attached to the Hamas-run government, said the airstrike destroyed a residential area behind the Saraya complex in Gaza City, killing at least five people.
According to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the bodies were taken, Israeli airstrikes on Saturday night killed three people in Breiji and three others in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. One child was among the dead. A young man was leaning against the hospital wall and crying.
Israeli forces said they targeted Hamas militants in an overnight attack near Salah al-Din in southern Gaza, and a vehicle in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. It also announced that a projectile fired by Hamas had hit near the Erez border with Gaza.
The Gaza Ministry of Health said at least 59 people were killed and more than 270 injured in attacks over the past 24 hours.
There was no immediate statement regarding indirect negotiations towards a ceasefire. Talks have repeatedly stalled, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing to continue military operations in Gaza until Hamas is destroyed. Hamas fighters, who are calling for the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, continue to regroup in areas where Israeli forces have withdrawn.
The talks are being mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States. $8 billion arms sale US officials to Israel.
hostage new video
This war is the deadliest round of fighting between Israel and Hamas. The incident began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas and other extremists attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250 others. About 100 hostages remain in Gaza, and at least a third are believed to be dead.
Family members of the hostages have been meeting weekly to press Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a cease-fire agreement that will bring their loved ones home, saying time is running out. At a rally Saturday night in Tel Aviv, police took away some demonstrators who had staged a sit-in in the street.
In a video released by Hamas ahead of the latest rally, Lili Arbag, an Israeli military hostage, expressed anguish over her situation under threat and spoke about her 450 days in captivity.
“Today is the start of a new year. The whole world is celebrating. Only we are entering a dark year, a year of loneliness,” she said. She also said a fellow prisoner of war had been injured in the fighting in Gaza, adding: “We are living in an extremely horrifying nightmare.” She did not release the names of the injured.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that he had spoken with Arbag’s parents and informed them that “efforts are still ongoing” to bring the hostages home. Albag’s family said in a statement: “It’s time to make decisions as if your child were there!”
Israel’s retaliatory attack Killed at least 45,717 Palestinians According to the Gaza Strip Ministry of Health, more than half of the deaths in the Gaza Strip are women and children. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally. Countless bodies remain under the rubble and in areas beyond the reach of emergency workers.
The Israeli military has targeted only the militants because they operate in densely populated residential areas and blames Hamas for civilian deaths. The military claimed to have killed 17,000 insurgents without providing evidence.
war is caused widespread destruction Approximately 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people were evacuated. many of them multiple times. winter has arrivedAnd hundreds of thousands of people are taking shelter in tents near the sea. a few Children died from exposure In the cold.
The Gaza Health Ministry said in a statement that Indonesian hospitals were no longer functioning following Israeli military operations in the area, adding that all public hospitals in the north, which had been largely isolated after a month of Israeli offensives, were now functional. He said he did not. Access to the north is severely restricted and claims can be difficult to verify.
tension elsewhere
on the other hand, Israeli-occupied West BankRelatives on Friday paid tribute to an 18-year-old Palestinian who was killed in a clash with Israeli forces in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said. The ministry said nine other people were injured.
Palestinian health authorities said more than 800 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across the West Bank since October 7, 2023. Israel says most of these were extremists, but young people who threw stones and people not involved in the conflict were also killed.
a fragile ceasefire Between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah held out It seems unlikely that the terms will be met by the agreed 60-day deadline, but the deadline is more than a month. Since the war in Gaza began, Israel and Hezbollah have engaged in near-daily gun battles.
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Associated Press writer Natalie Meltzer contributed to this report from Nahariya, Israel.
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