Dozens of Israeli strikes pounded the Gaza Strip over the weekend as Israeli and Hamas officers continued oblique cease-fire talks by means of mediators in Qatar.
Israel’s navy stated on Sunday that it had hit greater than 100 targets throughout the enclave over the weekend, together with websites from which militants had fired no less than 4 projectiles towards Israeli territory on Friday and Saturday. It stated that the strikes had killed Hamas militants and that the navy had taken measures to mitigate the danger of harming civilians. The claims couldn’t be independently verified.
The Gaza well being ministry stated in an announcement on Sunday that 88 Palestinians had been killed in Israeli strikes over the past 24 hours. The ministry’s figures don’t distinguish between civilians and combatants. The Gaza Civil Protection, an emergency services agency, stated that its crews had responded to a number of airstrikes on household houses on Sunday by which a number of individuals had been killed and wounded.
Strain has been mounting on each side to succeed in a cease-fire settlement that would come with the discharge of hostages held in Gaza earlier than President-elect Donald J. Trump takes workplace on Jan. 20. Hamas and Israel each stated they had been sending delegations to the Qatari capital, Doha, in current days to fulfill with mediators.
The Israeli delegation remained in Doha over the weekend, based on an Israeli individual acquainted with the matter, who spoke on situation of anonymity due to a scarcity of authorization to debate the secretive talks publicly. The individual stated that the discussions in Doha had been making sluggish progress and had been aimed toward reaching a restricted deal that might see a brief halt within the preventing and a few Israeli hostages launched in trade for a variety of Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.
Reflecting the abiding hole between the perimeters, no less than of their public positions, Hamas stated in an announcement on Friday that the present spherical of talks would concentrate on an settlement main to an entire cease-fire and the main points for a withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip. Israel had not dedicated to ending the conflict, an official who spoke on situation of anonymity to debate delicate diplomacy, said final week.
Roughly 100 hostages are nonetheless being held in Gaza out of some 250 individuals taken captive throughout the Hamas-led assaults in October 2023 that prompted the conflict. At the least a 3rd of them are presumed to be lifeless.
A weeklong truce in November 2023 allowed for the discharge of 105 hostages, however subsequent efforts to succeed in a cease-fire have faltered amid gaps within the two sides’ calls for. Both sides blames the opposite for the failure to succeed in a deal.
Israeli officers have lately stated that they imagine that Hamas is rebuilding its forces in Gaza. And the group seems to be recruiting new fighters quicker than Israel can eradicate them.
Safety officers reportedly told an Israeli parliamentary committee last week that Hamas has as much as 19,000 fighters, with about 9,000 of them in organized models. Earlier than the conflict, Israel estimated that Hamas had roughly 25,000 fighters, although Hamas by no means confirmed that determine.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in November that Israel’s navy had killed shut to twenty,000 fighters.
In all, greater than 45,000 Palestinians have been killed throughout the conflict, based on the well being ministry in Gaza.
And as hopes for even a restricted cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas rise once more, Palestinians and human rights organizations say the humanitarian situation in Gaza is getting much more determined.
The Palestinian Crimson Crescent Society said on Sunday that in a single day Israeli airstrikes close to Al-Amal Hospital within the southern metropolis of Khan Younis brought on vital harm to a number of hospital services and killed one individual.
Final week, Israeli forces raided the last remaining major hospital in northern Gaza, Kamal Adwan, and compelled its workers and sufferers to evacuate. The Israeli navy stated that Kamal Adwan was a stronghold for Hamas and that it was finishing up “focused operations” within the space.
The hospital had been the principle supplier of medical care within the northernmost stretch of Gaza amid a monthslong offensive by Israel’s navy towards what it says is a resurgent Hamas.
The World Well being Group said that the raid on Kamal Adwan “put the final main well being facility in North Gaza out of service” — and that the remaining sufferers, caregivers and well being employees had been transferred to the Indonesian Hospital.
However on Sunday, Gaza’s well being ministry stated that the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza was now not offering providers to sufferers or the wounded, leaving the northern a part of the enclave without any functioning hospitals amid the near-constant bombardment.
Aaron Boxerman contributed to this report.
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