Jehad Alshrafi / AP
Palestinians displaced by Israel’s air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip walk past sewage flowing into the streets of the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, Thursday, July 4, 2024.
Friday, July 5, 2024 | 19:08
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip – Separate Israeli airstrikes killed at least six people in central Gaza on Friday, including two children in a house and at least one United Nations worker, Palestinian hospital officials and first responders said, even as stalled ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas show signs of new momentum.
Four out of every five people in Gaza – nearly two million Palestinians – have been driven to the center of the territory by increasing Israeli military offensives and evacuation orders, the army estimated earlier this week. Civilians are seeking shelter in makeshift tent camps and crowded urban areas, and many have been displaced multiple times.
Violence also broke out in the occupied West Bank on Friday. According to Palestinian health authorities, Israeli forces killed seven people in a raid and an airstrike. On the Israeli-Lebanese border, two Israeli soldiers were slightly injured by rockets fired by the militant Hezbollah, the army said. There are growing fears that these smaller clashes could escalate into a larger regional war.
Deadly air strikes on Gaza
An Israeli attack near the Maghazi refugee camp on Salah al-Din Street, a major thoroughfare in Gaza, killed three adults and wounded several others, witnesses and officials at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah said. At least one of the dead was wearing a UN vest when he was taken to the hospital.
An adult and two children were also killed in an attack in the Nuseirat refugee camp, hospital officials said. The attack hit a house, the Palestinian Civil Defense said.
On Friday evening, ambulances blaring their horns pulled up to the doors of the medical center and unloaded the three bodies, wrapped in thick blankets. An Associated Press reporter saw the man lying in state in the morgue, his blue and white vest of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) stained with blood.
At least one of the wounded was also wearing a UNRWA vest. “Back up a bit, boys!” a man in a green medical uniform urged a small crowd gathered near the ambulance. “Thank God you’re safe,” another man said as the wounded worker was brought inside.
The Israeli military has not commented on the attacks. Israel blames Hamas for the civilian deaths and claims that the militants are operating among the population. Hamas denies this claim and accuses Israel of recklessly bombing civilians.
About 250,000 people were affected by an Israeli order earlier this week to evacuate half of the southern town of Khan Younis and a wide swath of the surrounding area. Most Palestinians seeking safety are heading either to an Israeli-declared “safe zone” in a coastal area called Muwasi or to the nearby town of Deir al-Balah, the head of the UN humanitarian office for the Palestinian territories, Andrea De Domenico, said on Wednesday.
New movement towards ceasefire in Gaza
An Israeli negotiating team will resume talks on a ceasefire and hostage exchange with Hamas next week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Friday, signaling progress in reaching an agreement to end the Gaza war after negotiations appeared to have stalled for weeks.
The brief Israeli statement came hours after Hamas said its proposed amendments to a US plan for a ceasefire had “received a positive response from mediators.” The Palestinian militant group said on Friday there was no firm date for negotiations and said Israel’s official position was not yet known.
Netanyahu’s office said negotiators would make it clear to American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators at talks in Doha, the capital of Qatar, that “there are still differences between the parties.”
The biggest sticking point in the three-phase agreement appears to be the transition from the first to the second phase. Hamas fears that Israel could restart the war after the first phase, perhaps because it made unrealistic demands in the talks. Israeli officials have expressed fear that Hamas could do the same and delay the talks and the initial ceasefire indefinitely without releasing the remaining hostages.
Away from the negotiating table, senior Hamas officials met with Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, as well as the leader of the Islamic Group. Hamas officials said they also met on Friday with senior delegations from the Houthi rebels in Yemen and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq.
And in Washington, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke by phone with his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant. They discussed regional security challenges and Austin expressed his support for ongoing diplomatic efforts to resolve the Gaza conflict.
Israeli attack in the West Bank
Palestinian authorities said seven people were killed on Friday in an Israeli military operation in an area of the West Bank city of Jenin, a known militant stronghold, where the Israeli military said it was conducting “anti-terror operations” that included an air strike.
Israeli soldiers “surrounded a building where terrorists were holed up” and exchanged fire with the occupants, while an airstrike hit “several armed terrorists” in the area.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said a total of seven people were killed, but did not say whether they died in the exchange of fire or the airstrike. Four of the dead were members of the militant group Islamic Jihad.
Since the beginning of the war between Israel and Gaza, violence in the West Bank has increased. It was triggered by the attack by Hamas fighters on southern Israel on October 7. During the attack, the fighters killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took over 200 hostage.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, more than 500 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since then. Most of them died in Israeli attacks and violent protests. Among the dead are also bystanders and Palestinians killed in attacks by Jewish settlers.
According to the Health Ministry, more than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by Israeli bombings and ground offensives. The ministry makes no distinction between fighters and civilians in its count, but includes thousands of women and children.
Israeli restrictions, ongoing fighting and the breakdown of law and order have limited humanitarian aid, leading to widespread hunger and famine. The UN’s top court has concluded that there is a “plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza – a charge Israel strongly denies.
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For more AP coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.
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Associated Press writers Julia Frankel in Jerusalem and Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed to this report.
