Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in multiple Israeli attacks on Gaza, hospital staff said, as top negotiators prepare to resume stalled ceasefire talks.
Staff at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza said Friday that more than a dozen women and children were among those killed in attacks on the Nuseirat refugee camp , az-Zawayda, Maghazi camp and Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza.
In Gaza City alone, at least 30 people were killed in Israeli attacks, the Palestinian Civil Defense said in a statement. Among them were three children who died when their house was struck near the al-Shamaa mosque in Gaza’s Zeitoun neighborhood.
In southern Gaza, Civil Defense said its teams recovered the bodies of two Palestinians killed in an attack in the Khirbet al-Adas area near Rafah, while two others were injured and transported to the nearby Nasser hospital.
Medical sources in the enclave told Tel Aviv Tribune that at least 52 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip on Friday.
Israeli planes destroyed buildings in the central Gaza Strip, killing journalist Omar al-Diraoui at his home in az-Zawayda – the second journalist killed in 24 hours.
On Thursday, it was confirmed that photographer Hassan al-Qishaoui had been killed in an Israeli attack.
Following the deaths, the Gaza government’s media office revised to 202 the number of journalists killed in the enclave since the start of the nearly 15-month war.
Meanwhile, Israel continued a new military offensive in northern Gaza, with Tel Aviv Tribune’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reporting that Israeli forces ordered the immediate evacuation of the Indonesian hospital in Beit Lahiya.
At least 25 patients were trapped inside the hospital, along with medical staff, according to people inside who spoke to Tel Aviv Tribune. Israeli soldiers have surrounded the facility and are firing on it, they said.
Hamas criticized the Israeli attack on the hospital in a statement, calling it a “war crime” and an ongoing Israeli “genocide” in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Israelis also woke up early Friday morning to an attack, with the army intercepting a missile believed to have been fired from Yemen and triggering air raid sirens in Jerusalem and central Israel.
Ceasefire talks resume
As the attacks continued, a new round of indirect talks on a Gaza ceasefire resumed in Qatar’s capital Doha, a senior Hamas official said.
Basem Naim underlined the seriousness of the group in its search for an agreement as quickly as possible.
The new talks will focus on an agreement on a permanent ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces, he said, as well as the return of displaced families to their homes.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said earlier that it had authorized a delegation from the Mossad, Shin Bet and military intelligence services to continue negotiations in Qatar.
Sami al-Arian, director of the Center for Islam and Global Affairs at Istanbul’s Sabahattin Zaim University, said Hamas may be ready to reverse one of its main demands: the immediate withdrawal of all Israeli forces in Gaza.
“There has been a lot of pressure from the mediators – particularly the Qataris and the Egyptians – to be flexible on these conditions,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“They assured the resistance, Hamas and other groups, that Israel would eventually withdraw,” he said.
But Ori Goldberg, a Tel Aviv-based political analyst, told Tel Aviv Tribune he saw no reason to be optimistic about reaching a ceasefire at the talks, amid a lack of significant international pressure from both sides.
“To my knowledge, Hamas is interested in a deal, but not excessively so, because its recruitment rates are increasing as Israel continues its genocide in Gaza,” he said.
“It is certain that the Israeli public is interested in an agreement. (But) the Israeli government? Not so much: the war serves its interests,” he said.
The main mediators, Qatar, Egypt and the United States, have been trying for months to reach a lasting agreement through indirect negotiations.
So far, 45,658 Palestinians have been killed and 108,583 injured in Gaza since Israel began its war against the enclave on October 7, 2023.
The war has caused widespread destruction and displaced about 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, many of them multiple times.
Hamas-led forces killed some 1,139 people in Israel in attacks on October 7, 2023, and took around 250 prisoners.
About a hundred captives are still in Gaza, although at least a third of them are believed to be dead.
