Palestinian Territories: Israel launched devastating air strikes on Gaza early Thursday while also saying it is ready to resume stalled talks on a truce and hostage release deal with Hamas to pause the war raging since October 7.
The Gaza Strip’s civil defence agency said two pre-dawn air strikes had killed 26 people, including 15 children, in Gaza City alone.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said one strike hit a family house, killing 16 people, in the Al-Daraj area, and another killed 10 people inside a mosque compound.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Fierce street battles also raged in Gaza’s Jabalia and Rafah where the armed wings of Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad said they had fired mortar barrages at Israeli troops.
International pressure for a ceasefire has mounted on Israel and its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as three European countries said Wednesday they would recognise a Palestinian state.
The week started with the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor seeking arrest warrants on war crimes charges against Netanyahu and his defence minister as well as three Hamas leaders.
Israel has angrily rejected those moves, voicing “disgust” over the ICC request and labelling any recognition of Palestinian statehood a “reward for terrorism”.
But domestic pressure has also risen as supporters of hostages trapped in Gaza again rallied outside Netanyahu’s office, passionately demanding a deal to bring them home.
A newly released video showed five female Israeli soldiers, tied up and some with bloodied faces, in the hands of Palestinian militants during the attack more than seven months ago.
The three-minute clip, taken from a militant’s body camera footage, was released by the Hostage and Missing Families Forum on Wednesday after the Israeli army lifted censorship on it.
“The footage reveals the violent, humiliating and traumatising treatment the girls endured on the day of their abduction, their eyes filled with raw terror,” the forum said.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said on Thursday it has completed a two-day operation in the occupied West Bank that the Palestinian Health Ministry says killed 12 Palestinians and wounded 25. Rippling tensions from the Israel-Hamas war were also felt in the Red Sea, where a missile splashed down in the water near the crucial Bab el-Mandeb Strait on Thursday, but caused no damage, and in Lebanon, where state-run National News Agency says an Israeli drone strike killed one person and wounded three school students who were passing nearby in a bus.
More than 400 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel and Hezbollah began exchanging fire the day after the latest war in Gaza began.
Norway, Ireland and Spain said Wednesday they were recognizing a Palestinian state, a move welcomed by Palestinians as an affirmation of their decades long quest while Israel recalled its ambassadors to the three countries.
It was the second blow to Israel’s international reputation this week after the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said he would seek arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister.
The International Court of Justice is also considering allegations of genocide that Israel has strenuously denied. At least 35,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians.