Deadly airstrikes in Gaza and reports of an Israeli raid there on Wednesday cast more doubt on any progress made by the latest US efforts to move forward the tenuous ceasefire.
JERUSALEM — Deadly airstrikes in Gaza and reports of an Israeli raid there on Wednesday cast more doubt on any progress made by the latest US efforts to move forward the tenuous ceasefire.
Just two days after US negotiators reportedly asked Israel to draw down attacks in the Gaza Strip, at least 10 people were killed Wednesday in two strikes, according to local hospitals and the Palestinian Red Crescent. Israeli troops also crossed the ceasefire line in southern Gaza and detained a Hamas police colonel at dawn Wednesday, two witnesses and a Hamas official said.
Israel's military said one of the strikes on Wednesday, in Nuseirat, struck a Hamas commander who had participated in the Hamas-led attack in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and 251 abducted. A second strike in the Tuffah area of Gaza City struck another Hamas commander planning to carry out attacks against Israeli troops, the military said.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said that Wednesday's strike on a police station in Gaza City killed at least nine people and wounded 15 others. One person was killed in Nuseirat. On Tuesday evening, an Israeli strike on a busy seaside cafe killed seven Palestinians, including a child, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
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Israel's military said that Tuesday's strike had targeted a meeting of four Hamas commanders and additional militants, including one who had participated in the 2023 attack. The military didn't provide the names of the targeted commanders or confirm if they'd been killed.
Jared Kushner, a US negotiator and US President Donald Trump's son-in-law, held a marathon meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, in which he asked Israel's leader to draw down attacks on the Gaza Strip, a person familiar with the meeting said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorised to brief journalists.
Also on Wednesday, Israel's military said that it had completed reviews of 150 incidents of troop conduct during the war in Gaza and would launch criminal investigations into the killings of a 5-year-old girl and her family, as well as of 15 Palestinian paramedics.
14 killed in Israeli strikes
The deadly strike in Gaza on Tuesday and Wednesday exacted more casualties even as a ceasefire that's been in place since October has significantly diminished the fighting in the tiny enclave where more than 2 million Palestinians live. Since the ceasefire, Israeli strikes have killed at least 1,273 people, according to health officials in Gaza.
The nearly three-year Israel-Hamas war has killed more than 73,400 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The ministry, which was part of the recently dissolved Hamas-run government, maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by UN agencies and international organizations. It doesn't distinguish between civilians and militants, but says women and children make up around half of all fatalities.
In the early hours of Wednesday, at least 15 Israeli troops entered the Muwasi coastal area, west of the city of Khan Younis, two residents and a Hamas official said.
Accompanied by armed men, the troops stormed the tent of Sabri Abdel-All, a colonel for the Hamas-led Blue Police in Khan Younis. They also detained another resident identified as Nashat Ezzat Zaarab, they said.
The two residents and the Hamas official spoke on condition of anonymity for their safety.
Latest ceasefire negotiation offer few concrete commitments
On the diplomatic front, the ceasefire also appears stalled. Trump's initial ceasefire plan laid out a broad vision for ending Hamas' rule in Gaza and rebuilding the territory, much of which was reduced to rubble during the devastating war.
But since last fall, major sticking points have emerged on the conditions of Hamas' disarmament and Israel's withdrawal — and which of the two should come first.
Earlier this month, Trump announced that Hamas had agreed to disarm. But Hamas said it would begin to disarm if Israel halts strikes and withdraws, adding that laying down its heavy weapons would come later in the process and be contingent on the creation of a Palestinian state — something Israel's government adamantly rejects.
And Netanyahu also pushed back on the deal, saying that Israel won't withdraw from its current lines in Gaza until Hamas has completely disarmed.