FALCON POWERS – Medics said Israeli airstrikes and tank shelling hit areas in central and southern Gaza Strip overnight Thursday, killing 23 Palestinians, as mediators struggle to make progress in efforts to broker a ceasefire.
Qatari and Egyptian mediators, supported by the United States, are intensifying efforts to reach an agreement that would halt the fighting and secure the release of Israeli captives and Palestinian detainees, as well as the flow of aid to the devastated enclave to alleviate the humanitarian crisis there, but sources close to the talks said there were no signs of a breakthrough.
Residents said Israeli tanks pushed further west into the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, along the border with Egypt, amid fierce battles between Israeli forces and fighters led by the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).
Palestinian health officials said Palestinians were killed and others wounded in the west of Rafah from tank shelling. Palestinian medics in central Gaza also said at least 15 people were killed in the Israeli strikes overnight Thursday.
Residents said the armored forces, which took control of the Rafah border area, carried out several attacks in the west and center of the city, resulting in the injury of several civilians trapped inside their homes.
Some residents said the tanks were now positioned in the Al-Azazma area in the far southwest of Rafah, near the Mediterranean coast.
“In my opinion, the occupying forces are trying to reach the coastal area of Rafah, the airstrikes all night and the attempt to advance were tactical and under cover of fire before they withdrew,” said one Palestinian.
He told Reuters via a messaging app, “It was one of the worst nights, with people injured inside their homes before morning.”
Medics said six people, including children, were killed and others wounded in a later Israeli air raid on a house in the city of Khan Younis, north of Rafah, on Friday.
Palestinian medics also said Israeli forces carried out operations inside the Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, while warplanes and tanks heavily bombarded the Al-Maghazi and An-Nuseirat camps and the neighboring city of Deir Al-Balah.
The military wings of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad movements, as well as other smaller factions, reported that their fighters carried out attacks on Israeli forces in several areas in the center and south of the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army in its latest update said it killed “dozens” of militants and found other tunnels and destroyed more of the militants’ infrastructure in its ongoing operations in Al-Bureij and Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza.
Israel ruled out reaching peace before eliminating Hamas. Despite the destruction of large areas of Gaza, Hamas has proven its ability to endure, with the reappearance of militants fighting in the areas that the Israeli forces had previously announced they had defeated and withdrawn from.
On Thursday, Israel bombed a school in Gaza in an air raid, saying it targeted about 30 Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants who were inside, but a Hamas official said 40 people, including women and children who were taking shelter in the UN-run school, were killed.
The Israeli army said it identified the identities of nine out of the 30 militants it targeted in the raid. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said the school was sheltering six thousand displaced people at the time of the bombardment. UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said “this is yet another horrific example of the price civilians are paying, as Palestinian men, women and children who are trying to survive and who have been forced to relocate within the deadly circle surrounding Gaza, in search of safety.”
The war erupted after an attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, which, according to Israeli statistics, resulted in the killing of about 1,200 people and the detention of more than 250 hostages.
About half of the hostages were released as part of a November truce.
Gaza health officials say the Israeli assault on the Strip has killed more than 36,700 people, in addition to thousands believed to be killed under the rubble.
Hamas insists on the demand to end the war and the full withdrawal of Israel from the Strip, while Israel says it is ready to discuss only temporary truces as long as the war continues until the defeat of the armed movement.
A Hamas official told Reuters, “We have shown all the flexibility required to reach a deal, but the Israeli occupation still refuses any commitment to stop the aggression against our people and withdraw its forces from the Gaza Strip.”
He added, “The occupation and the Americans bear responsibility for the failure to reach an agreement so far due to their opposition to ending the war on our people.”
