Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 48 people while the humanitarian crisis and violence in the West Bank raise fears of the worst.
Israeli strikes killed at least 48 people in southern and central Gaza overnight, half of them women and children, health officials said Thursday, as European affairs ministers Foreign and UN agencies have called for a ceasefire, with growing concern over the worsening humanitarian crisis and the threat of imminent famine in the territory.
Tension is also rising in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where three Palestinian gunmen opened fire Thursday morning at a road checkpoint, killing one person and injuring five others, according to Israeli police.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced Thursday that the government “will expand the authority granted to our hostage negotiatorsHis comments, delivered during a meeting with US Mideast envoy Brett McGurk, showed a small sign of progress in ceasefire talks.
Benny Gantz, who is part of Israel’s war cabinet with Gallant and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Wednesday that new attempts were being made to reach a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas that could disrupt the war in Gaza and enable the release of around 130 Israeli hostages held by the militants since their October 7 attack on southern Israel.
This is the first Israeli indication of new efforts since negotiations stalled a week ago. But Mr. Gantz, a former military leader and defense minister, reiterated his promise that if Hamas does not agree to release the remaining hostages, Israel will launch a ground offensive in Gaza’s southernmost town, Rafah, planned around on March 10.
More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are crowded into Rafah after fleeing fighting and bombings in the rest of the territory. Israel said it would evacuate them before attacking. But it’s unclear exactly where they would go, as much of the rest of the tiny Mediterranean enclave is devastated by fighting, raising fears of an explosion in civilian casualties in an Israeli assault that has already killed more than 29,400 people, the majority of whom are women and children.