Israeli military strikes killed at least 40 Palestinians this Friday (29) in the Gaza Strip, doctors said, as officials from the Palestinian group Hamas travel to Cairo for a new round of ceasefire negotiations.
Doctors said they had recovered 19 bodies of Palestinians killed in the northern areas of Nuseirat, one of the enclave’s eight refugee camps.
An Israeli airstrike killed at least 10 Palestinians in a house in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, doctors said.
Others were killed in the northern and southern areas of the Gaza Strip, doctors added. There was no new statement from the Israeli military this Friday, but on Thursday (28) it said that its forces continued to “attack terrorist targets as part of operational activity in the Gaza Strip”.
Israeli tanks entered the northern and western areas of Nuseirat on Thursday. They withdrew from the northern areas on Friday but remained active in the western parts of the field. The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said teams were unable to respond to calls for help from residents trapped in their homes.
Dozens of Palestinians returned to areas where the army had retreated to survey the damage to their homes.
Doctors and family members covered bodies, including women, that lay on the road and carried them away on stretchers.
“Forgive me, my wife, forgive me, my dear,” said an anguished man through tears next to the woman’s body, lying on a stretcher on the floor.
Doctors said an Israeli drone killed Ahmed Al-Kahlout, head of the Intensive Care Unit at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, in the far north of the Gaza Strip, where the army has operated since early October.
The Israeli military said it was not aware of an attack occurring in this location or period.
Kamal Adwan Hospital is one of three medical facilities in the far north of the Gaza Strip that are currently barely functioning due to shortages of medical supplies, fuel and food. Most of the employees were detained or expelled by the Israeli army, health officials say.
The Palestinian civil emergency service, Hamas and the official Palestinian news agency WAFA put the number of Palestinians killed in two Israeli attacks on Beit Lahiya in the past 24 hours at 70.
In the West Bank, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and accused Israel of “using the weapon of hunger against the people (in northern Gaza) to expel them from their lands and homes”.
The Israeli army said forces operating in Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and Jabalia since October 5 aim to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping and carrying out attacks in those areas. Residents said the army was emptying the towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, as well as the Jabalia refugee camp.
Ceasefire efforts will resume
On Friday night, two Hamas officials told Reuters that a delegation from the group would arrive in Cairo on Saturday (29) for negotiations with Egyptian authorities. The visit comes days after the United States announced it would begin new efforts with Qatar, Egypt and Turkey to resume ceasefire negotiations in Gaza.
Months of negotiations have yielded little progress, and talks are on hold.
A ceasefire in the parallel conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, came into force this week, halting hostilities that have escalated in recent months and overshadowed the conflict in Gaza.
In announcing the agreement with Lebanon, US President Joe Biden said he would now renew his push for a ceasefire agreement in Gaza and called on Israel and Hamas to seize the moment.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed nearly 44,300 people and displaced nearly the enclave’s entire population at least once, officials say. Vast areas of the territory are in ruins.
Hamas-led fighters who attacked southern Israeli communities 13 months ago, triggering the war, killed about 1,200 people and captured more than 250 hostages, Israel said.
This content was originally published in Attacks in Gaza leave people dead before ceasefire negotiations in Egypt on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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