War between Israel and Hamas: Over 60 dead in Israeli attacks in Gaza during renewed ceasefire talks

More than 60 Palestinians were killed in Israeli air strikes in the south and central Gaza Strip on the night of Tuesday (local time). One of the attacks hit a “security zone” declared by Israel, where thousands of displaced people were staying.

The air strikes of the last few days have caused a steady increase in casualties in the Gaza Strip, even though Israel has withdrawn or reduced its ground offensives in the north and south. Almost daily, the attacks hit the “security zone”, which stretches over about 60 square kilometers along the Mediterranean coast and where Israel is supposed to shelter Palestinians fleeing from ground attacks.

Israel said it was pursuing Hamas terrorists hiding among civilians after offensives destroyed underground tunnel systems.

The deadliest attack on Tuesday hit a main street lined with market stalls outside the southern town of Khan Younis in Muwasi, in the heart of the zone of tent camps. Officials at Khan Younis’ Nasser Hospital said 17 people were killed.

Apparently referring to the attack, the Israeli military said in a statement that it had attacked a commander of an Islamic Jihad marine unit west of Khan Younis and said it was investigating reports that civilians had been killed.

The attack occurred about a kilometer from a complex that Israel attacked on July 13. Israel said the attack was aimed at Hamas’ top military commander, Mohammed Deif. The blast, in an area also surrounded by tents, killed more than 90 Palestinians, including children, according to Gaza health officials. It is not yet clear whether Deif was killed in the attack.

The new airstrikes came as Israel and Hamas were still arguing over the latest ceasefire proposal. Hamas has said talks to end the nine-month war would continue even after Israel attacked Deif. International mediators were trying to persuade Israel and Hamas to reach an agreement that would end the fighting and release about 120 of the terror group’s hostages in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli forces have had to repeatedly launch new offensives to counter Hamas fighters who they say were regrouping in parts of Gaza that the military had previously occupied, but the military is increasingly convinced that it has severely damaged the group’s organization and infrastructure in its nine-month campaign.

The military said on Tuesday it had eliminated half of the leadership of Hamas’ military wing and killed or arrested about 14,000 terrorists. It said it had killed six brigade commanders, more than 20 battalion commanders and about 150 company commanders from Hamas ranks and carried out air strikes on 37,000 targets in the Gaza Strip over the course of the war, including more than 25,000 terrorist infrastructure and launch sites.

The figures could not be independently confirmed.

Israel’s ground attacks have focused on the north of the Gaza Strip and the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, where it says it has destroyed extensive Hamas tunnel networks. The offensives have leveled entire neighborhoods. While ground operations in Rafah continue, the air strikes now also appear to be hitting areas in the center and in the “safe zone” on the coast that were spared from previous offensives.

Late Monday and Tuesday, attacks hit the Nuseirat and Zawaida refugee camps in central Gaza, killing at least 24 people, including 10 women and four children, according to officials at Al-Aqsa Hospital in the nearby town of Deir al-Balah.

Another attack hit a UN school in Nuseirat where families had sought shelter, killing at least nine people. AP footage showed the schoolyard covered in rubble and twisted metal from a hit building. Workers carried bodies wrapped in blankets as women and children watched from the classrooms where they had been living.

The Israeli military said Hamas terrorists had planned attacks from the school. This claim could not be independently confirmed.

According to doctors and AP journalists, 12 people were killed in further attacks in Khan Younis and Rafah. An AP journalist counted the bodies in the hospital before a funeral was held outside its gates.

The military said air force planes had attacked about 40 targets in Gaza over the past day, including observation posts, Hamas military facilities and buildings rigged with explosives. Israel blames Hamas for the civilian casualties because the militants operate in densely populated areas.

The Israeli military said on Tuesday that it would begin sending draft notices to ultra-Orthodox Jewish men next week, a move that could destabilize Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and spark further major protests in the community. Under longstanding political agreements, ultra-Orthodox men have been exempt from conscription, which is mandatory for most Jewish men, an exception that has sparked resentment among the Israeli population.

The war in Gaza, sparked by Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on October 7, has killed more than 38,600 people, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its count. The war has unleashed a humanitarian catastrophe in the Palestinian coastal territory, displacing most of its 2.3 million residents and causing widespread hunger.

The Hamas attack in October killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and the terrorists took about 250 hostages. About 120 people are still in captivity, and about a third of them are said to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.

Violence has also escalated in the West Bank. On Tuesday, a Palestinian stabbed an Israeli policeman, slightly wounding him, before another policeman opened fire and killed the attacker, who was identified as a 19-year-old from Gaza.

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