Deir Al-Balah: Israel pressed its offensive in Gaza on Wednesday, with at least 16 Palestinians reported killed across the strip as the world awaited Hamas’ response to US President Donald Trump’s peace plan for the embattled territory. The dead included people who had sought refuge in a school sheltering the displaced in Gaza City. Al-Falah school in the city’s eastern Zeitoun neighbourhood was hit twice, minutes apart, according to officials at Al-Ahli Hospital.
Among the casualties were first responders, they said. Five Palestinians were killed later on Wednesday morning, when a strike hit people gathered around a drinking water tank on the western side of Gaza City, the same hospital said.
Also in Gaza City, the Shifa Hospital said it received the body of a man killed in a strike on his apartment west of the city. Israeli strikes also hit the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, killing a husband and wife, the Al-Awda hospital said. Another man was killed in a separate strike in the Bureij refugee camp, according to the same hospital.
A funeral was planned for Yahya Barzaq, a journalist working for Turkish broadcast outlet TRT, who was killed in a strike in Gaza on Tuesday, according to the broadcaster.
The Israeli army did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the killed journalist or Wednesday’s strikes. Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 66,000 Palestinians and wounded nearly 170,000 others, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and militants in its toll, but has said women and children make up around half of the dead. The war was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, in which militants killed some 1,200 people and abducted 250 others. Most of the hostages have been freed under previous ceasefire deals, but 48 are estimated to be still held in Gaza — 20 believed by Israel to be still alive.
On Tuesday, Qatar said that further talks were needed over details of Trump’s proposal for ending the nearly two-year war in Gaza. Hamas said it would study the plan, both within the group and with other Palestinian factions.