At least 35 Palestinians were killed early on Monday in an Israeli strike on a former school building in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, as efforts to bring about a ceasefire in the near 20-month-old conflict continued.
Despite various reports of progress, Israel and Hamas appear no closer to an agreement to bring a cessation to hostilities and the further release of hostages seized in the Palestinian militant group’s attack on Israel in October 2023.
An Israeli official said a proposal, accepted by Hamas, based on a 60-day truce during which 10 living hostages would have been released in two phases, “cannot be accepted by any responsible government”. He said:“Hamas has no real desire to move forward with a deal.”
US special envoy Steve Witkoff on Monday also stated he was “disappointed” with the Hamas response to his proposed ceasefire framework.
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Hamas is demanding a ceasefire to end the war, backed by international guarantees. Israel demands that Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups disarm and their leaders be exiled from the Gaza Strip.
The diplomatic deadlock has dashed hopes of an end to the fighting after US president Donald Trump told journalists he wanted to end the war in Gaza “as quickly as possible”. His statement was followed by unconfirmed reports in Arab media outlets that Mr Trump was expected to announce a Gaza ceasefire in the coming days.
[ Nine of a doctor’s 10 children killed in Israel’s latest strikes in GazaOpens in new window ]
Those killed in the latest Israeli air strike, on Monday, were sheltering in a school being used to house displaced families.
Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defence said multiple bodies, including those of children, were recovered after fires engulfed two classrooms serving as living quarters. Images shared widely on social media showed what appeared to be badly burned bodies being pulled from the rubble.
Farah Nussair, a survivor of the attack, said “just the tired ones” who needed food and water were in the school.
Holding a child in her lap, she said: “We fled to the south, they bombed us in the south. We returned to the north, they bombed us in the north. We came to schools ... There is no security or safety, neither at schools, nor hospitals – not anywhere.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had targeted “a Hamas and Islamic Jihad command and control centre”, and it again accused the militant groups of using the local population as human shields.
On Monday the IDF issued notices for residents of the entire southern Gaza Strip to evacuate west towards the Muwasi humanitarian area. “The IDF is launching an unprecedented attack to defeat the terrorist organisations,” the order said.
Five IDF divisions are now operating across Gaza involving all the standing army’s infantry and tank corps units. On Monday the government approved call-up orders for 450,000 extra reservists, although it is expected that these soldiers will be drafted in stages, assuming there is no end to hostilities.
On Sunday it was revealed that the IDF plans to conquer some 75 per cent of Gaza within two months, forcing Gaza residents into three separate areas: Muwasi, in the south; the central area of refugee camps around Bureij; and part of Gaza city in the north.
The first humanitarian aid distribution centre run by a private US security company opened on Monday in southern Gaza. Three more are scheduled to open this week and four more if the pilot is successful. Hamas has urged families not to accept the aid packages. The United Nations and other aid agencies are refusing to co-operate, accusing Israel of using humanitarian assistance as a weapon to force residents to relocate away from their homes.
The majority of medical equipment has run out in Gaza, and 42 per cent of basic medicines, including pain killers, are out of stock, the World Health Organisation said on Monday.
Almost 54,000 people have been killed in the Gaza war, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Some 1,200 were killed and 251 taken hostage in the Hamas-led cross-border attack on October 7th, 2023. A total of 58 are still being held, about 20 of whom are believed to be alive.
According to the Saudi newspaper, Asharq al-Awsat, Hamas is suffering from an unprecedented crisis as a result of the financial, defence and administrative difficulties it faces as a consequence of the war in Gaza, and is struggling to pay salaries to its fighters and civil servants in Gaza. − Additional reporting: Reuters
