Civil Defense says more bodies remain under the rubble after the partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from Tal al-Hawa, Shujayea.
The bodies of dozens of Palestinians were recovered in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood after Israeli forces withdrew from parts of Gaza City, Palestinian rescuers said.
“Gaza Civil Defense teams intervened to rescue survivors. They found dozens of dead people. Most of them are families, women and children. Some of the bodies were eaten by dogs,” Gaza Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal said on Friday.
“At least 60 bodies have been counted. Some bodies were buried on the spot. Others were transported to nearby hospitals.”
Israeli forces entered the neighborhood this week after ordering civilians to evacuate on Monday.
“Many bodies are still under the rubble. Israeli forces are stationed nearby and rescue operations are regularly interrupted,” Basal said.
The discovery comes after Israeli forces withdrew from the Shujayea neighborhood in Gaza City. On Thursday, Basal said civil defense teams had also found dozens of bodies there, adding that the neighborhood had become uninhabitable.
“Documented testimonies” have been collected that Israeli forces opened fire on residents of the neighborhood while they were on designated evacuation routes, he said.
Home to more than a quarter of Gaza’s residents before the war, Gaza City was largely razed by late 2023, but hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had returned to their ruined homes before Israel again ordered them to leave.
Hamas, the Palestinian group that rules Gaza, has accused Israeli forces of “atrocities” and called for international accountability. In a statement, the group accused Israel of committing “heinous abuses” in Gaza City.
“The atrocities revealed after the withdrawal of the terrorist occupation army from Tal al-Hawa, southwest of Gaza City, after days of incursion and intense bombardment that targeted all aspects of life, are war crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing,” Hamas said.
It calls on the UN and the international community to take immediate action to end Israel’s “war of extermination” against the Palestinians.
“Delay” ceasefire negotiations
As Israeli forces step up their attacks in northern Gaza, they also continue to target areas in the south of the besieged enclave.
In Khan Younis, an Israeli airstrike killed at least four aid workers from the British aid organisation Al-Khair Foundation.
They were “targeted at a distribution point where they were preparing to distribute aid in Khan Younis,” said Tel Aviv Tribune’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from Deir el-Balah.
“The Al-Khair Foundation has been working in the Gaza Strip since day one, trying to provide people with food aid and many other items, and we lost four more aid workers today,” Khoudary said.
This is not the first time that Israeli forces have targeted aid workers. In April, seven people working for the American NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK) were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza.
At the time, the Israeli military said the attack on the WCK team’s convoy was a “grave mistake” and vowed to protect aid workers.
Mediators are still trying to reach a ceasefire agreement that would release Israeli captives in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
A senior Hamas official on Friday accused Israel of failing to capitalize on the momentum created when the group dropped a key demand in a U.S.-drafted ceasefire offer a week ago to pave the way for a deal.
“Israel has not expressed a clear position on Hamas’ proposal,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters, accusing Israel of “failing to respond and wasting time.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday he remained committed to the Gaza ceasefire framework and accused Hamas of making demands that contradict it, without specifying what those demands were.
Two Egyptian sources said Thursday that negotiations had progressed, but security arrangements and ceasefire guarantees were still being worked out.