Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip overnight into Thursday killed at least 23 people, including a family of 10, officials in Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said.
The United Nations, meanwhile, raised alarm over the mounting impact of Israel’s six-week-old blockade preventing all food and other supplies from entering the territory.
On Thursday night, Hamas’ Gaza chief said the group was ready to immediately negotiate a deal to swap all hostages with an agreed number of Palestinians jailed by Israel within a deal that would end the war in the enclave.
In a televised speech, Khalil Al-Hayya, who leads the Hamas negotiating team for the indirect talks with Israel, said the group refuses an interim truce deal.
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Israel ended its ceasefire with Hamas last month and renewed its bombardment, killing hundreds of people and seizing large parts of the territory to pressure the militants to accept changes to the agreement.
A strike in the southern city of Khan Younis killed five children, four women and a man from the same family, all of whom suffered severe burns, according to Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies.
Strikes in northern Gaza killed 13 people, including nine children, according to the Indonesian Hospital.
The UN humanitarian office, known as OCHA, said that almost all of Gaza’s more than two million people now rely for food on the only one million prepared meals produced daily by charity kitchens supported by aid groups.
Other food-distribution programmes have shut down for lack of supplies, and the UN and other aid groups have been sending their remaining stocks to the charity kitchens.
The only other way to get food in Gaza is from markets. But most cannot afford to buy there because of spiralling prices and widespread shortages, meaning humanitarian aid is the primary food source for 80 per cent of the population, the World Food Programme said in its monthly report for April on Gaza’s markets.
“The Gaza Strip is now likely facing the worst humanitarian crisis in the 18 months since the escalation of hostilities in October 2023,” OCHA said.
Most people in Gaza are now down to one meal a day, said Shaina Low, a spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council.
“It’s far lower than what is needed,” she said.
Water is also growing scarce, with Palestinians standing in long lines to fill jerry cans from trucks.
Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday that preventing humanitarian aid is one of the “central pressure tactics” used against Hamas, which Israel accuses of siphoning off aid to maintain its rule.
Israel is demanding that Hamas release more hostages at the start of any new ceasefire and ultimately agree to disarm and leave the territory.
Mr Katz said that even afterwards Israel will continue to occupy large “security zones” inside Gaza.
Hamas is currently holding 59 hostages, 24 of whom are believed to be alive. Before Thursday night’s announcement by Al-Hayya, it said it would only return them in exchange for the release of more Palestinian prisoners, a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a lasting truce, as called for in the now-defunct ceasefire agreement reached earlier this year.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on October 7th, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251, according to Israeli tallies.
Most of the hostages have since been released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israel has rescued eight and recovered dozens of bodies.
Israel’s offensive has killed more than 51,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants.
Israel says it has killed about 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.
The war has destroyed vast parts of Gaza and most of its food-production capabilities. The war has displaced around 90 per cent of the population, with hundreds of thousands of people living in tent camps and bombed-out buildings. – AP
