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Reuters

Israeli military strikes in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis killed at least 38 people since Thursday night and Israeli forces launched a nighttime raid on a hospital in the north, Palestinian officials said.
The Gaza health ministry said many of the casualties from the Israeli strikes on houses in southeast Khan Younis were women and children.
The Israeli military said in a statement forces killed a number of Palestinian gunmen in air and ground strikes in the southern Gaza Strip and dismantled military infrastructure.
Some residents returned to the scene on Friday morning, sifting through rubble in an attempt to retrieve some of their clothes and documents, while children looked for their toys.

At the nearby Nasser Hospital, doctors prepared the dead, among them three children wrapped in the same white shroud.
In the north of the enclave, where the area around the town of Jabalia has been the target of a weeks-long offensive, health officials said Israeli forces stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of three medical facilities struggling to operate there, and stationed forces outside it.
“Since last night, at midnight, the occupation army tanks and bulldozers reached the hospital. The terrorising of civilians, the injured and children began as they [the Israeli army] started opening fire on the hospital,” Eid Sabbah, the hospital’s director of nursing, said in a voice note to Reuters.
He said when army retreated, a delegation from the World Health Organization arrived with an ambulance and evacuated 40 patients. Israeli tanks returned and opened fire on the hospital, striking its oxygen stores, before raiding the building and ordering staff and patients to leave, Sabbah said.
The Israeli military said it was operating in the area of Kamal Adwan Hospital based on intelligence “regarding the presence of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure” there.
In the weeks before the raid, Israeli forces facilitated the evacuation of 45,000 people including patients from the area while maintaining emergency services, the military said, adding it had killed hundreds of militants there.

Israeli strikes on three houses in the nearby Gaza town of Beit Lahiya killed 25 people and wounded dozens of others, doctors said.
Medics at the three hospitals have refused Israeli orders to evacuate their hospitals and leave patients unattended. They said at least 800 Palestinians have been killed in northern Gaza since the army began the new offensive three weeks ago.
“IDF troops continue their operational activity in the area of Jabaliya and have eliminated dozens of terrorists, dismantled terrorist infrastructure, and located numerous weapons over the past day,” the Israeli military said.
Israel says its forces returned to northern Gaza as Palestinian militant Hamas fighters had regrouped there.
The escalation came as the United States pushed for a new effort to reach a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, that would end the war and see the release of Israeli and foreign hostages held captive in Gaza as well as many Palestinians jailed by Israel.

A Hamas official confirmed to Reuters on Friday that a delegation led by the group’s chief negotiator Khalil Al-Hayya arrived in Cairo on Thursday for talks with Egyptian officials to discuss “ways to end the Israeli aggression on Gaza”.
The official says Hamas was determined any agreement must end the war in Gaza, get Israeli forces out of the enclave and achieve a prisoners-for-hostages swap deal.
US and Israeli negotiators will gather in Doha in the coming days to try to restart talks toward a deal, officials said on Thursday. Israel is also fighting Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there was an urgency to get a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, a day after he said Washington did not want to see a protracted campaign in Lebanon by its ally Israel.
“We have a sense of real urgency in getting to a diplomatic resolution and the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, such that there can be real security along border between Israel and Lebanon,” Blinken said in London.
He said it was important so “people at both sides of the border can have the confidence to … return to their homes”.




Qatar and Egypt have acted as mediators between Israel and Hamas in months of talks that broke down in August without an agreement to end the war that erupted when Hamas-led fighters attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
As the war moves into its second year, the death toll from the Israeli campaign in Gaza is approaching 43,000, with the densely populated enclave in ruins.
The operation in northern Gaza has fuelled fears among Palestinians that Israeli forces are clearing the area to create a buffer zone for the military after the war or to pave the way for the return of settlers who left Gaza in 2005.
Israel has denied such plans and accuses Hamas of hindering the evacuation of civilians to provide cover for its own forces, which Hamas, in turn, denies.


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Middle East

Israeli forces kill 38 people in Khan Younis, storm north Gaza hospital

Displaced Palestinians crowd for bread at the only bakery left in the city of Khan Younis. Photo: dpa

Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a house, in Khan Younis. Photo: Reuters

Palestinians inspect the remains of destroyed buildings following the Israeli air strikes in Khan Younis. Photo: EPA-EFE

A Palestinian inspects the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Khan Younis. Photo: Reuters

Israel and Hamas signal openness to talks on Gaza war

A Palestinian boy sits on the rubble of the destroyed Maghazi Camp Services Club building following an Israeli strike in the Gaza Strip. Photo: AFP

A devasted neighbourhood in Gaza City. Photo: Reuters

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Doha. Photo: AFP

Relatives of hostages and their supporters lead a demonstration around Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Jerusalem residence. Photo: Reuters

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli air strike in Dahiyeh, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon. Photo: AP

Israel and Hezbollah exchange heavy fire as Blinken pushes for peace

Smoke rises over Beirut’s southern suburbs after an Israeli strike. Photo: Reuters

Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system operates for interceptions, as seen from near Ein Ya’akov, northern Israel. Photo: Reuters

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh. Photo: AP

Smoke in Tyre, southern Lebanon, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces. Photo: Reuters

US’ Antony Blinken expects Gaza truce negotiators to meet ‘in coming days’

Palestinians make their way in a devastated neighbourhood in Gaza City. Photo: Reuters

Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people, in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip. Photo: Reuters

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks to officials before boarding his plane in Riyadh, en route to Doha. Photo: AFP

The Israeli military said it had hit a Hamas command and control centre embedded in a compound formerly used as a school in Nuseirat. Photo: Reuters

Hezbollah finance chief ‘eliminated’ in Syria, Israel army says

On Monday, Syria’s defence ministry announced the death of two people in a strike attributed to Israel and targeting a car in Damascus. Photo: EPA-EFE

News

World

The escalation came amid new US push for a ceasefire deal, with negotiators meeting in Doha in the coming days to try and restart talks


The escalation came amid new US push for a ceasefire deal, with negotiators meeting in Doha in the coming days to try and restart talks.
