Deadly fighting in Gaza, Hezbollah rocket attacks in 10th month of war | World news

Israel launched deadly attacks on the Gaza Strip on Sunday in the tenth month of its war against Hamas, while diplomatic efforts are underway to reach a ceasefire and release the hostages.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, an ally of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, has fired volleys of rockets into northern Israel in recent cross-border clashes that have sparked fears of all-out war.

In Israel, anti-government protesters demanding the release of hostages blocked streets in the commercial center of Tel Aviv, marking a nationwide “day of unrest.” The Hamas attack began at 6:29 a.m. on October 7.

Efforts to reach a ceasefire continued. Mediators from the US, Qatar and Egypt hoped to end the Gaza war, which has claimed numerous civilian casualties and devastated large parts of the coastal region.

The Egyptian state-affiliated news agency Al-Qahera News reported, citing an anonymous high-ranking official source, that Cairo was “receiving Israeli and American delegations to discuss the outstanding issues.”

As part of the “intensive Egyptian meetings with all parties this week,” mediators are in contact with Hamas, the news report said late Saturday, without giving further details.

Israel has announced that it will send a delegation to continue talks with Qatari mediators, but a government spokesman said on Friday that there were still “gaps” in dealing with Hamas.

At the end of May, US President Joe Biden announced a plan that initially called for a six-week ceasefire and the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

Talks quickly stalled, but a US official said Thursday that a new Hamas proposal “moves the process forward and could form the basis for concluding the agreement.”

Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan told AFP that US mediators had “welcomed” the group’s latest proposals and “passed them on to the Israeli side.”

“The ball is now in Israel’s court,” said Hamdan.

At a rally in Tel Aviv, 34-year-old Israeli data scientist Yoni Peleg said protesters were “crying for help… to end the war” and putting pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to release the remaining hostages.

Fighting and bombings in besieged Gaza continued unabated. Doctors and rescue workers in the Hamas-controlled area reported more deaths in several attacks on Sunday.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said two children were among the six killed in an attack on a house in central Gaza, and medics reported nine deaths in two attacks on Gaza City.

An AFP correspondent said Israeli drones fired on Gaza’s Shujaiya neighborhood, which has been largely evacuated for nearly two weeks and is seeing heavy fighting.

The Israeli military said its troops killed “several” militants in Shujaiya and “destroyed terrorist infrastructure facilities.”

The Israeli military added that Israeli forces had killed 30 Palestinian militants in the far south of Rafah in the past 24 hours, and clashes were reported in nearby Khan Yunis.

The unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7 that sparked the war left 1,195 people dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on Israeli figures.

The militants also captured 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in the Gaza Strip. According to the military, 42 of them are dead.

With the promise of destroying Hamas, Israel has launched a military offensive that has killed at least 38,153 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Health Ministry.

According to the Health Ministry, the victims also include 16 people who were killed on Saturday in an attack on a UN-run school in the central Nuseirat refugee camp. The school housed displaced Palestinians. According to the Israeli military, the school was used by militants.

According to UN organizations, the war has uprooted almost all residents of the Gaza Strip, almost 500,000 people are suffering from “catastrophic” hunger and most hospitals are closed.

Dr. Muhammad Salha, deputy director of Al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia, said the facility was “without fuel” due to severe shortages during the Israeli siege of Gaza.

“The situation is very difficult,” he said. “We have postponed many planned missions due to the lack of fuel.”

Since the beginning of the Gaza war, there have been almost daily cross-border shelling attacks between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah.

The attacks and rhetoric have intensified in recent weeks, fueling fears of a larger conflagration.

While the clashes remain largely confined to the border areas, Israel has repeatedly struck deep in eastern Lebanon. On Saturday, for example, there was an attack in which a Hezbollah member was killed.

Early Sunday, air raid sirens sounded across northern Israel and the military reported that 20 rockets had been fired, some of which were intercepted.

Hezbollah said it had attacked an Israeli military base west of Tiberias “in response to the attack carried out the previous day.”

According to Israeli police, one person was injured by shrapnel in Kfar Zeitim near Tiberias, about 30 kilometers from the Lebanese border.

Hezbollah later claimed responsibility for a second rocket attack on a military base elsewhere in northern Israel.

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This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without any modifications.