Gaza’s Civil Defense Agency said around 30 people were killed in Israeli shelling on Friday, as Hamas said indirect negotiations for a cease-fire in Qatar were expected to resume.
The Israeli military said three rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory, the latest in a series of fires by militants in the devastated Palestinian territory.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal told AFP: “Friday was a tough day for Gaza residents, especially Gaza City, due to continuous Israeli shelling.”
He said several children were also among the dead.
Seven people were killed in an Israeli attack in Gaza City’s Shujaya district, Bassal said.
Gaza resident Mohammed Abu Rabda, whose brother was among those killed, said it was an “act of revenge” for Israel. “They destroyed everything that moves on earth, even the trees. So what will become of humans? This is a war of annihilation,” he told AFP.
The Israeli military announced that in the past 24 hours, the Israeli Air Force has attacked approximately 40 Hamas terrorist concentration points. Some of the targets were “embedded in areas previously used as schools.”
Mr Basal denied the charges. He accused the military of leaving “dozens of medical staff, patients and injured people without food and drinking water” at an Indonesian hospital in the northern town of Beit Lahia.
He added that the hospital had been sending out a distress call since Thursday and was now “just a pile of rubble and walls.” There’s no hospital. ”
The Israeli military told AFP there had been no attacks on Indonesian hospitals over the past day and no critical equipment was damaged.
“There is no need to evacuate the hospital,” he said, adding that he was coordinating with hospital officials to provide humanitarian aid.
On Sunday, a United Nations team visited a hospital in Indonesia. “All around me is rubble and destruction,” Jonathan Whittall, a U.N. aid official, said in a video released after the visit.
The Israeli military has repeatedly accused Hamas of using the hospital as a command center, a claim denied by the militants.
A report released Tuesday by the U.N. human rights office said “insufficient information” was available to substantiate “vague” Israeli accusations about military use of hospitals.
Amid escalating violence in the Gaza Strip, Hamas said indirect negotiations with Israel for a ceasefire and hostage release deal would resume in Qatar late Friday.
The extremist group, whose Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war, said the talks will “focus on whether the agreement will ensure a complete cessation of hostilities (and) the withdrawal of occupation forces.” ” he said.
Mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States have been holding back-and-forth talks between Israel and Hamas for months, but have been unable to end the nearly 15-month war.
The main obstacle to an agreement is Israel’s reluctance to agree to a permanent ceasefire.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced that it had given permission for Israeli negotiators to continue talks in Doha.
Meanwhile, the military announced that insurgents fired three rockets from Gaza toward Israel.
Such firings have become much rarer than earlier in the war, but have intensified since late December as Israel continues a three-month offensive in the northern territory.
The Israeli military has been bombarding northern Gaza since October 6, saying it is to prevent Hamas militants from regrouping.
United Nations human rights experts said on Monday that the “siege” of northern Gaza appeared to be part of an effort to “permanently expel the local population as a prelude to Gaza’s annexation.”
Bassal estimated that the remaining population in the northern towns of Jabalia, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun had dropped to 10,000 from 150,000 to 200,000 before the war.
Hamas attacks on Israel in 2023 killed 1,208 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli statistics.
Israel’s retaliatory military operations have killed at least 45,658 people in the Gaza Strip, the majority of them civilians, according to statistics from the Hamas-controlled health ministry, which the United Nations considers reliable.
