Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in multiple Israeli attacks on Gaza, hospital staff said, as high-level negotiators prepare to resume stalled ceasefire talks.
Staff at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza said on Friday that more than a dozen women and children were among those killed in attacks on the Nuseirat refugee camp, az-Zawayda, Maghazi camp and Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.
In Gaza City alone, at least 30 people were killed in Israeli attacks, the Palestinian Civil Defence said in a statement. Among them were three children who died when their home was struck in the vicinity of al-Shamaa mosque in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood.
In southern Gaza, the Civil Defence said its teams recovered the bodies of two Palestinians who were killed in an attack on the Khirbet al-Adas area, near Rafah, while two others were injured and taken to the nearby Nasser Hospital.
Medical sources in the enclave told Al Jazeera at least 52 Palestinians were killed across the Gaza Strip on Friday.
Israeli jets destroyed buildings in the centre of the Strip, killing journalist Omar al-Diraoui in his home in az-Zawayda – the second journalist to be killed in 24 hours.
On Thursday, it was confirmed that photographer Hassan al-Qishaoui had been killed in an Israeli attack.
Following the deaths, Gaza’s Government Media Office revised the number of journalists killed in the enclave since the beginning of the nearly 15-month war to 202.
Meanwhile, Israel pressed on with a renewed military offensive in the north of Gaza, with Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reporting that Israeli forces ordered the immediate evacuation of the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya.
At least 25 patients were trapped inside the hospital, along with medical staff, according to people inside who spoke to Al Jazeera. Israeli soldiers have surrounded the facility and are firing at it, they said.
Hamas slammed Israel’s attack on the hospital in a statement, calling it a “war crime” and part of Israel’s ongoing “genocide” in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Israelis also woke up to an attack early on Friday morning, with the army intercepting a missile reportedly fired from Yemen, which had set off air raid sirens in Jerusalem and central Israel.
Ceasefire talks resume
As the attacks continued, a new round of indirect talks on a ceasefire in Gaza resumed in Qatar’s capital, Doha, a senior Hamas official said.
Basem Naim stressed the group’s seriousness in seeking to reach a deal as soon as possible.
The new talks will focus on agreeing on a permanent ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces, he said, as well as ensuring the return of displaced families to their homes.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said earlier that he had authorised a delegation from the Mossad intelligence agency, the Shin Bet internal security agency and the military to continue negotiations in Qatar.
Sami al-Arian, director of the Centre for Islam and Global Affairs at Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University, said Hamas could be willing to walk back one of its key demands – the immediate withdrawal of all Israeli forces from Gaza.
“There has been a lot of pressure from the mediators – particularly the Qataris and Egyptians – to be flexible on these terms,” he told Al Jazeera.
“They have assured the resistance, Hamas and other groups, that eventually Israel will withdraw,” he said.
But Ori Goldberg, a Tel Aviv-based political analyst, told Al Jazeera he does not see any grounds for optimism that a ceasefire will be agreed upon at the talks, amid a lack of significant international pressure being applied on either side.
“To the best of my knowledge, Hamas is interested in a deal but not excessively, because its recruitment rates are rising the longer Israel continues its genocide in Gaza,” he said.
“Certainly, the Israeli public is interested in a deal. [But] the Israeli government? Not so much – the war serves its interests,” he said.
Key mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States have been attempting to secure a lasting deal in indirect talks for months.
So far, 45,658 Palestinians have been killed and 108,583 wounded in Gaza since Israel began its war on the enclave on October 7, 2023.
The war has caused widespread destruction and displaced some 90 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, many of them multiple times.
Hamas-led forces killed some 1,139 people in Israel in attacks on October 7, 2023, and took about 250 captives.
About 100 captives are still in Gaza, although at least a third of them are believed to be dead.
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