Israeli strikes killed dozens more people overnight, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Thursday, including in the territory’s south where Israel has intensified operations.
The renewed strikes came as medicine for hostages held by the militants and fresh aid for civilians entered the Palestinian territory under a newly brokered deal, mediator Qatar said.
The ministry said 93 people had been killed, including 16 in a single strike on a house in the southern city of Rafah, where many people have fled.
“The strike left 16 killed, among them women and children, and 20 injured,” the ministry said.
The Hamas government reported dozens of strikes, including in the southern city of Khan Younis and Palestinian refugee camps in central Gaza.
Plumes of black smoke rose over Khan Younis at dawn after the strikes.
Fighting has ravaged the Gaza Strip since Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attacks on Israel that resulted in the death of about 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
At least 24,448 Palestinians, most of them women, children, and adolescents, have been killed in Israeli bombardments and a ground offensive, according to figures from the health ministry.
Hamas and other militants seized about 250 hostages during the October 7 attacks, and around 132 remain in Gaza, including at least 27 believed to have been killed.
The fate of those still in captivity has gripped Israeli society, leading to pressure against the government for their release.
A broader humanitarian crisis in besieged Gaza is marked by the threat of famine and disease, fueling international calls for a ceasefire.
Late Wednesday Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari said on X, formerly Twitter, that medicine for hostages and aid entered Gaza “over the past few hours” under the agreement announced on Tuesday following French and Qatari mediation.
Two planes earlier arrived in the Egyptian city of al-Arish near the Gaza border with 61 tonnes of aid provided by Doha and France, including medicine and food, Qatar said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross welcomed the deal as “a much-needed moment of relief,” under which 45 hostages are expected to receive medication.
France said the drugs would be sent to a hospital in Rafah, given to the Red Cross, and divided into batches before being transferred to the hostages.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the army was hitting Gaza’s main southern city of Khan Younis particularly hard to dismantle the Hamas leadership, which the army says has already been done in northern Gaza.
Israel’s army announced the death of one soldier on Wednesday, bringing to 193 the total number killed in Gaza since ground operations began in late October.
At the Abu Yussef Al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, Palestinians stood in front of bodies wrapped in shrouds, mourning loved ones killed in Israeli bombardment.
Hassan Gebril Franjee, a resident of central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp, returned to find his home had been destroyed.
“I wish they would stop the war because the situation is devastating. Our youth is gone. Our whole life is gone,” he told AFP.
The United Nations says the war has displaced roughly 85 percent of Gaza’s people, many of whom have crowded into shelters and struggle to get food, water, fuel, and medical care.
