Israeli strikes across Gaza killed 19 people overnight, including a woman and her six children.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Israeli strikes across Gaza killed 19 people overnight, including a woman and her six children, as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken headed to the region on Sunday (August 18, 2024) to try to seal a cease-fire deal after months of contentious negotiations.

The U.S. and fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar appeared to be closing in on a deal after two days of talks in Doha, with American and Israeli officials expressing cautious optimism. But Hamas has signaled resistance to what it says are new demands by Israel, and the long-running talks have repeatedly stalled.

The evolving proposal calls for a three-phase process in which Hamas would release all hostages abducted during its October 7 attack, which triggered the deadliest war ever fought between Israelis and Palestinians. In exchange, Israel would withdraw its forces from Gaza and release Palestinian prisoners.

The mediators hope to end a war that has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, displaced the vast majority of the territory’s 2.3 million residents and caused a humanitarian catastrophe. Experts have warned of famine and the outbreak of diseases like polio.

Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the October 7 attack and abducted around 250. Of those, some 110 are still believed to be inside Gaza, with Israeli authorities saying around a third are deceased. More than 100 hostages were released in November during a weeklong cease-fire.

The latest Israeli bombardment included a strike early Sunday (August 18, 2024) on a home in the central town of Deir al-Balah that killed a woman and her six children, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

Mohammed Awad Khatab, the children’s grandfather, said his daughter, a school teacher, was with her husband and their six children when their house was struck. He said the children ranged in age from 18 months to 15 years, and that four of them were quadruplets. He said the father was hospitalized after the strike.

“The six children have become body parts. They were placed in a single bag,” he told reporters outside the hospital. “What did they do? Did they kill any of the Jews?… Will this provide security to Israel?”

A strike in the northern town of Jabaliya hit two apartments in a residential building, killing two men, a woman and her daughter, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Another strike in central Gaza killed four people, according to the Awda Hospital. Late Saturday (August 17, 2024), a strike near the southern city of Khan Younis killed four people from the same family, including two women, according to Nasser Hospital.

Hamas has cast doubt on whether an agreement is near, saying the latest proposal diverged significantly from a previous iteration they had accepted in principle. Hamas has rejected Israel’s demands for a lasting military presence along the Gaza-Egypt border and a line bisecting Gaza where Israeli forces would search Palestinians returning to their homes. Israel says both are needed to prevent militants from rearming and returning to the north.

Israel showed flexibility on retreating from the border corridor, and a meeting between Egyptian and Israeli military officials was scheduled for next week to agree on a withdrawal mechanism, according to two Egyptian officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the private negotiations.

Palestinian children sit next to the site of an Israeli strike on a house, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, April 21, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Israeli strikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah overnight killed 18 people, including 14 children, health officials said on April 21, as the United States was on track to approve billions of dollars of additional military aid to its close ally.

Israel has carried out near-daily air raids on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has sought refuge from fighting elsewhere. It has also vowed to expand its ground offensive to the city on the border with Egypt despite international calls for restraint, including from the U.S.

The House of Representatives approved a $26 billion aid package on Saturday that includes around $9 billion in humanitarian assistance for Gaza.

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The first strike killed a man, his wife and their 3-year-old child, according to the nearby Kuwaiti Hospital, which received the bodies. The woman was pregnant and the doctors managed to save the baby, the hospital said.

The second strike killed 13 children and two women, all from the same family, according to hospital records. An airstrike in Rafah the night before killed nine people, including six children.

The Israel-Hamas war has killed over 34,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, devastated Gaza’s two largest cities and left a swath of destruction across the territory. Around 80% of the population have fled their homes to other parts of the besieged coastal enclave, which experts say is on the brink of famine.

The conflict, now in its seventh month, has sparked regional unrest pitting Israel and the U.S. against Iran and allied militant groups across the Middle East. Israel and Iran traded fire directly earlier this month, raising fears of all-out war between the longtime foes.

Tensions have also spiked in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli troops killed two Palestinians who the military says attacked a checkpoint with a knife and a gun near the southern West Bank town of Hebron early Sunday. The Palestinian Health Ministry said the two killed were 18 and 19 years old, from the same family. No Israeli forces were wounded, the army said.

The Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service meanwhile said it has recovered a total of 14 bodies from an Israeli raid in the Nur Shams urban refugee camp in the West Bank that began late Thursday. Those killed include three militants from the Islamic Jihad group and a 15-year-old boy. The military says it killed 10 militants in the camp and arrested eight suspects. Nine Israeli soldiers and officers were wounded.

In a separate incident in the West Bank, an Israeli man was wounded in an explosion Sunday, the Magen David Adom rescue service said. A video circulating online shows a man approaching a Palestinian flag that had been planted in a field. When he kicks it, it appears to trigger an explosive device.

At least 469 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Most have been killed during Israeli military arrest raids, which often trigger gunbattles, or in violent protests.

The war in Gaza was sparked by an unprecedented Oct. 7 raid into southern Israel in which Hamas and other militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 hostages. Israel says militants are still holding around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.

Thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets to call for new elections to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a deal with Hamas to release the hostages. Netanyahu has vowed to continue the war until Hamas is destroyed and all the hostages are returned.

The war has killed at least 34,049 Palestinians and wounded another 76,901, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The ministry does not differentiate between combatants and civilians in its count but says at least two-thirds have been children and women. It also says the real toll is likely higher as many bodies are stuck beneath the rubble left by airstrikes or are in areas that are unreachable for medics.

Israel blames Hamas for civilian casualties because the militants fight in dense, residential neighborhoods, but the military rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children. The military says it has killed over 13,000 Hamas fighters, without providing evidence.

Some of Latin America’s largest countries came out on Wednesday to condemn Israel’s attacks on a densely populated refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, widening the diplomatic rift between the region and the Middle Eastern country.

Argentina, home to Latin America’s largest Jewish community, Peru and Mexico lambasted the Israeli attacks, which the Gaza government in the Hamas-controlled territory said had killed nearly 200 people.

The criticisms come a day after Bolivia cut diplomatic ties with Israel over its bombardment and siege of Gaza and mounting civilian casualties, while Colombia and Chile recalled their ambassadors to the country.

-Reuters