An Israeli airstrike hit Palestinians near a medical centre in Gaza on Thursday, killing 10 children and six adults, local health authorities said, as ceasefire talks dragged on with no immediate deal expected.
Verified video footage from the strike in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip showed the bodies of women and children lying in pools of blood amid dust and screaming. One clip showed several motionless children lying on a donkey cart.
“She didn’t do anything, she was innocent, I swear. Her dream was for the war to end and that they announce it today, to go back to school,” said Samah al-Nouri, sitting by the body of her daughter who was killed in the blast.
“She was only getting treatment in a medical facility. Why did they kill them?” she said, with other bodies laid out around her at a nearby hospital.
Israel’s military said it had struck a militant who took part in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war. It said it was aware of reports regarding a number of injured bystanders and that the incident was under review.
U.S.-based Project HOPE said the strike had hit right outside its Altayara health clinic. “Horrified and heartbroken cannot properly communicate how we feel anymore,” the aid group said in a statement.
The Deir al-Balah missile strike came as Israeli and Hamas negotiators hold talks with mediators in Qatar over a proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage release deal aimed at building agreement on a lasting truce.
A senior Israeli official said on Wednesday that an agreement was not likely to be secured for another one or two weeks, however, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday he was hopeful of a deal.
“I think we’re closer, and I think perhaps we’re closer than we’ve been in quite a while,” Rubio told reporters at the ASEAN summit in Malaysia.
Several rounds of indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas have failed to produce a breakthrough since the Israeli military resumed its campaign in March following a previous ceasefire.
Repeated attacks by Israeli forces in recent weeks have killed hundreds of Gazans, many of them civilians, and injured thousands, according to local health authorities, putting an enormous strain on the enclave’s few remaining hospitals.
Dwindling fuel supplies risk further disruption in the semi-functioning hospitals, including to incubators at the neonatal unit of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, doctors there said.
“We are forced to place four, five or sometimes three premature babies in one incubator,” said Dr Mohammed Abu Selmia, the hospital director, adding that premature babies were now in a critical condition.
An Israeli military official said that fuel destined for hospitals and other humanitarian facilities was let into the enclave on Wednesday and on Thursday.
However, U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said that far more fuel was needed to keep essential life-saving and life-sustaining services operating.
TALKS
U.S. President Donald Trump met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week to discuss the situation in Gaza amid reports that Israel and Hamas were nearing agreement on a U.S.-brokered ceasefire proposal after 21 months of war.
Netanyahu said that if the two sides reach agreements on the U.S. 60-day truce plan, Israel will begin negotiations on a permanent ceasefire.
In a statement from Washington, he reiterated Israel’s terms for ending the war, including Hamas disarming and no longer ruling Gaza. Hamas has rejected calls to lay down its weapons.
“If this can be achieved through negotiations – that’s good. If it’s not achieved through 60-day negotiations then we will achieve it by other means, by use of force,” Netanyahu said.
A Palestinian official said the talks in Qatar were in crisis and that issues under dispute, including whether Israel would continue to occupy parts of Gaza after a ceasefire, had yet to be resolved.
The two sides previously agreed a ceasefire in January but it did not lead to a deal on ending the war and Israel resumed its military assault two months later, stopping all aid supplies into Gaza for 11 weeks and telling civilians to leave the north of the tiny territory.
Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has now killed more than 57,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities. It has destroyed swathes of the territory and driven most Gazans from their homes.
