At least 17 Palestinians, including eight children and four women, were killed and dozens others wounded in an Israeli strike in central Gaza’s Zawayda town on Saturday (local time). Most of the people killed in Zawayda were from the same family, the news agency Reuters reported citing health officials in the Hamas-administered enclave.
This came soon after Israel issued new evacuation orders, citing Hamas rocket fire nearby. The Israeli military, in response, said that it had struck militant targets in an area from which rockets were fired at its troops, adding that the incident was under review.
Earlier on Saturday, Israel’s military spokesperson posted instructions in Arabic on X for people in parts of central Gaza, including in the Maghazi district near Zawayda, to evacuate to a designated humanitarian zone. It couldn’t be verified whether Zawayda was among the places ordered to evacuate.
As per the Reuters report, Israel has also announced the names of two soldiers, who according to Israeli media, were killed on Saturday afternoon when a roadside bomb exploded in the central Gaza Strip, and an air strike in the occupied West Bank. Israeli media said the strikes have killed two senior Hamas militants involved in the killing of an Israeli.
The violence occurred before US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was expected to arrive in Israel for a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday. The visit is reportedly amid at stepping up diplomatic efforts to conclude a deal to end the fighting between Israel and the militant Islamist group and free Israeli hostages.
Violence In Gaza
Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population has been displaced by the 10-month-old Israeli offensive, which has laid waste to much of the enclave. On Friday, the Israeli Military deemed two sections of the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, within the designated humanitarian zone, dangerous and ordered people to evacuate them, saying militants had been regularly firing rockets from there.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Friday’s orders, which also included other areas of the enclave outside the humanitarian zones, had affected around 170,000 displaced people.
“This is one of the largest evacuation orders affecting the zone to date and it shrinks the size of the so-called ‘humanitarian area’ to about 41 square kilometres, or 11 per cent of the total area of the Gaza Strip,” OCHA report said.
Since Friday, Israeli forces said they have killed dozens of “militants”, including some who had fired rockets from central and southern Gaza.
Gaza Truce Talks
Gaza ceasefire talks in Doha, mediated by the US, Qatar and Egypt, were due to resume next week. US President Joe Biden said on Friday, following two days of talks in Doha, that efforts to reach a deal were now in sight, although he warned that negotiations were “far from over”.
Meanwhile, a statement from Netanyahu’s office said Israel’s negotiating team had expressed “cautious optimism” on the possibility of advancing a deal “in accordance with the updated American proposal (based on the May 27th framework), including components acceptable to Israel.”
Hamas spokesman Jihad Taha told Al Jazeera TV on Saturday that Israel had added conditions in the ceasefire talks and accused Netanyahu of using these to hinder the efforts.
