More than 100 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip over a 24-hour period, the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory said Friday.
Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh held talks with Egyptian officials about a possible cease-fire in Gaza and an exchange of hostages held by the militants for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, according to a Hamas statement Friday morning.
Israeli airstrikes in central and southern Gaza killed at least 68 Palestinians, health officials and an Associated Press journalist said, and another 24 bodies were trapped under rubble.
In all, 104 Palestinians were killed over the past 24 hours, the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Friday. The overall death toll since the Oct. 7 start of the war rose to 29,514. Though the count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, the ministry has said women and children account for about two-thirds of those killed.
The strikes were reported in the southern city of Rafah, the central town of Deir al-Balah and the refugee camp of Nuseirat.
In Deir al-Balah, bodies draped in white or black burial shrouds were laid out in the courtyard of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital, as relatives wept nearby. The bodies were later collected by relatives and taken for burial after brief prayers.
Outside the hospital, a man held the body of an infant killed in one of the strikes.
During Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, militants killed about 1,200 people and took some 250 hostages. Roughly half of the hostages were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November. About 100 hostages remain in captivity, in addition to the bodies of 30 others who were killed on Oct. 7 or died in captivity.
Israel’s subsequent offensive in Gaza has killed more than 29,000 Palestinians and driven some 80% of the territory’s 2.3 million people from their homes. Most heeded Israeli orders to flee south, and around 1.5 million are packed into Rafah near the border with Egypt.
European diplomats have ramped up calls for a cease-fire as alarm grows over the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
A Palestinian man wounded in an Israeli drone strike on a car in the occupied West Bank died of his injuries, bringing the number of people killed in the attack to two.
The two men, their bodies wrapped in the flags of the militant group Islamic Jihad, were buried Friday in the Jenin refugee camp.
The Israeli military said one of those killed, identified as Yasser Hanoun, was about to carry out a shooting attack when the strike hit his car late Thursday. It alleged that Hanoun was previously involved in several shooting attacks targeting Israeli settlements and army posts.
Violence has escalated in the West Bank since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, triggered by a deadly Hamas attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7. Since then, about 400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank, most as part of near-daily arrest raids by troops searching for suspected militants.
LINK: https://news.yahoo.com/live-updates-hamas-leader-leaves-065042908.html?
