At least 20 people have been killed in the latest Israeli air strikes in Gaza, including eight people who died in a tent camp in the designated Muwasi humanitarian zone, among them two children.
The Israeli military claimed it had targeted a Hamas militant in the strikes, which took place on Sunday night and Monday morning.
Those killed were sheltering in the Muwasi camp on Gaza’s Mediterranean coast, which Israel designated a humanitarian safe zone but has repeatedly targeted. The casualties were reported by Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, which received the bodies.
In a separate development on Monday, the Israel Defense Forces told residents of northern Gaza to evacuate westward to Gaza city, saying rockets had been launched in the area.
Negotiations continue in an effort to achieve a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal. Both sides said on Monday that the gaps had narrowed, but Israel said a real breakthrough would be possible only when Hamas, the militant group that governs the Gaza Strip, handed over to the mediators a list of hostages it planned to release.
“Although there have been significant achievements,” Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu told parliament on Monday, “the mission of returning all the hostages home is our top priority”. He said it was uncertain how much time this would take, but said progress had been made due to Israeli military successes.
A Palestinian official familiar with the talks said while some contentious points had been resolved, the identity of some Palestinian prisoners to be released by Israel in return for hostages had yet to be agreed, along with the redeployment of Israeli troops in Gaza.
An Israeli official denied on Monday that IDF forces would withdraw from most areas along the Philadelphi route on the Gaza-Egypt border as part a ceasefire agreement. The official said an Israeli presence along the border was vital to prevent Hamas rearming via the cross-border smuggling of weapons.
More than 45,300 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s onslaught on the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry. Some 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7th, 2023, Israel says.
Israel received a major boost on Monday when pro-Iranian militias in Iraq announced they were stopping their attacks against Israel. A senior official in the umbrella organisation of dozens of militias said the decision was made in the framework of an agreement with Iraqi president Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani. In the last few months, Iraqi authorities put a lot of pressure on the militias not to attack Israel, in part to prevent the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iraqi territory.
“The armed factions have adhered to the Iraqi government’s directives, especially after developments in Syria, where there are concerns about a scenario worse than the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, potentially leading to the resurgence of terrorism in Iraq,” said a senior figure in Iraq’s pro-Iranian militia, the Al-Nujaba movement, known as HHN.
The decision removes another front from the multi-front war Israel has been fighting for the last 14½ months.
One front that remains active is Yemen, where Iranian-backed Houthi militants continue to fire long-range rockets and drones at Israel, despite deadly Israeli counterstrikes that have caused significant casualties and damage. In the latest incident a drone from Yemen was intercepted on Monday afternoon before it entered Israeli air space.
Lebanese caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati said on Monday the most important upcoming task in Lebanon was to guarantee Israel withdraws from the territories “it encroached on during its recent aggression”. He was referring to the 80km Golan Heights buffer zone along the Israel-Syrian border – an area that had been demilitarised for the past 50 years – seized by Israel immediately after the fall of the Assad regime.
Mr Netanyahu says Israeli forces will stay there until at least the end of 2025 and will pull back only when “another arrangement” for security is found. – Additional reporting: AP
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