GAZA STRIP (Palestinian territories)- A Gaza family sat weeping on Saturday over children killed by an Israeli strike as they were getting ready to play soccer, amid an intensified bombardment that Palestinian health authorities said has killed 44 people over the past 24 hours.
The strike was in Mawasi, a southern coastal area where hundreds of thousands of people have sought shelter after Israel’s military told them to leave other areas it was bombing in its war against Hamas.
“The rocket struck them. There were no wanted or targeted people there and there was nobody else in the street. Just the children who were killed yesterday,” said Mohammed Zanoun, a relative of the dead children.
Palestinian health authorities say Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 43,500 people, with another 10,000 believed to be dead and uncounted under the rubble.
Israel launched its offensive in response to the attack on Oct. 7 2023, when Hamas gunmen stormed border defences and rampaged through Israeli communities killing 1,200 people and seizing around 250 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
On-off talks for a ceasefire and hostage release deal mediated by the United States, Egypt and Qatar have made little progress and on Saturday a Qatari official said Doha would pull out of negotiations unless the two sides committed more fully.
The official said Qatar would stop trying to mediate talks until Hamas and Israel “demonstrate a sincere willingness to return to the negotiating table”.
That followed a U.S. official saying on Friday that Washington had asked Qatar to close the Hamas office in Doha after the group rejected a ceasefire proposal.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri dismissed the report as “an American attempt to send a message of pressure to the movement through the media”.
It was not clear how far Tuesday’s election of Donald Trump to another term as U.S. president, or the coming departure of President Joe Biden’s administration, would affect the war.
Adding to international concerns, the conflict has expanded, with Israel also fighting the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon.
Lebanon’s health ministry said Saturday seven people including two children were killed in Israeli strikes on the southern city of Tyre a day earlier, with rescuers still searching for missing people under the rubble.
“Israeli enemy strikes on the city of Tyre killed seven people including two girls, and injured 46 others,” the ministry said, adding that body parts had been found and will be “identified with DNA testing”.
It added that rubble was being cleared following the strikes as part of ongoing efforts to locate missing persons.
The ministry had on Friday reported a toll of three killed and 30 injured in the strikes.
AFP photos showed rescuers carrying bodies on stretchers amid the wreckage, as rubble and twisted metal were strewn across the street.
Earlier on Saturday, Lebanon’s official National News Agency had said the deadly strikes targeted three buildings in the coastal city, causing “massive damage to dozens of homes”.
The NNA also said “enemy fighter jets” destroyed two heritage houses in the southern city of Nabatiyeh.
Hezbollah said on Saturday it targeted Israeli troops, locations and military sites including a base and an area north of Haifa, in addition to downing an Israeli Hermes 450 drone over a south Lebanon village.
Israel intensified its air campaign on Lebanon in September and later sent in ground troops after a year of cross-border clashes.
The escalation came after nearly a year of low-intensity, cross-border attacks by Hezbollah in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas following its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war.
More than 3,110 people have been killed in Lebanon since the cross-border exchanges began, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
STRIKES
The U.N. Human Rights Office said on Friday that nearly 70% of fatalities it had verified in Gaza were women and children. Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva, where the office is based, said it categorically rejected the report, saying it did not accurately reflect realities on the ground.
Strikes overnight and on Saturday morning killed four people east of Gaza City including two journalists, four in a house in Beit Lahiya, two in a tent at al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah, and four in a tent in Abassan near Khan Younis, medics said.
Israel’s military did not immediately respond on Saturday to a request for comment on strikes on areas where displaced people were sheltering.
It has previously said Hamas fighters hide among the civilian population and it hits them when it sees them. Hamas denies hiding among civilians.
For the past month, Israel’s main military focus has been in northern Gaza, the first part of the tiny, crowded territory that its troops overran early in the conflict last year.
A committee of global food security experts warned on Friday that there was a strong likelihood of imminent famine in northern Gaza amid the renewed fighting.
Israel’s military said 11 trucks of food, water and medical supplies had been delivered into the north Gaza areas of Jabalia and Beit Hanoun on Saturday and said the famine assessment was based on “partial, biased data”.
It said was preparing to open the Kissufim crossing into Gaza to expand aid routes.
(With agencies)