Dozens of Palestinians returned to areas where the army had withdrawn to check the damage to their homes.
Photo: AFP / EYAD BABA

By Nidal al-MughrabiReuters

Israeli military strikes killed at least 40 Palestinians overnight and Friday in the Gaza Strip, doctors said, as efforts to revive ceasefire talks in Gaza received a boost with officials from the Palestinian group Hamas heading to Cairo for a new round of negotiations.

Doctors said they found 19 bodies of slain Palestinians in the northern areas of Nuseirat, one of the enclave’s eight long-standing refugee camps.

Later Friday, 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 on Friday, but it said on Thursday that its forces continued to “strike terrorist targets as part of their operational activities 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 camp.

The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said its teams were unable to respond to distress calls from residents trapped in their homes.

Dozens of Palestinians returned Friday to areas where the army had withdrawn to check the damage to their homes.

Doctors and relatives covered the bodies, including those of women, lying on the road with white blankets or shrouds and carried them away on stretchers.

“Forgive me, my wife, forgive me, my Ibtissam, forgive me, my dear,” a grieving man wailed in tears next to her corpse, lying on a stretcher on the ground.

Doctors said Friday that an Israeli drone killed Ahmed Al-Kahlout, head of the intensive care unit at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, where the army operates since the beginning of October.

Contacted by Reuters, the Israeli military said it was not aware of a strike there or at that time.

Kamal Adwan Hospital is one of three medical facilities on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip that are currently barely functioning due to lack of medical supplies, fuel and food. Most of its medical staff have been arrested or expelled by the Israeli army, according to health officials.

Palestinian civil emergency services, Hamas and the official Palestinian news agency WAFA put the number of Palestinians killed in two Israeli strikes in Beit Lahiya in the past 24 hours at 70.

This figure was not immediately confirmed by the local health ministry.

Vast swaths of Gaza are in ruins.
Photo: RONALDO SCHEMIDT / AFP

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and accused Israel of “using the weapon of famine against the population (in northern Gaza) to drive them out of his lands and his houses.

The Israeli military said forces operating in Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and Jabalia since October 5 aimed to prevent Hamas militants from regrouping and carrying out attacks from those areas. Residents said the army was depopulating the towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun as well as the Jabalia refugee camp.

Ceasefire talks to resume

Two Hamas officials told Reuters on Friday evening that a Hamas delegation would arrive in Cairo on Saturday for talks with Egyptian officials. The visit comes days after the United States announced it would begin new efforts with Qatar, Egypt and Turkey to restart ceasefire talks in Gaza.

Months of efforts to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza have yielded little progress and negotiations are now suspended.

A ceasefire in parallel conflict between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollahally of Hamas, came into force before dawn on Wednesday, putting an end to hostilities which had sharply intensified in recent months and had overshadowed the Gaza conflict.

Announcing the agreement in Lebanon on Tuesday, US President Joe Biden said he would now renew his efforts for a ceasefire agreement in Gaza and he urged Israel and Hamas to seize the opportunity.

The Israeli campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 44,300 people and displaced almost the entire population of the enclave at least once, according to Gaza officials.

Vast parts of the territory are in ruins.

Hamas-led militants who attacked communities in southern Israel 13 months ago, sparking the war, killed some 1,200 people and captured more than 250 hostages, Israel said.

– Reuters