GAZA: Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 12 people on Monday, including six in a clinic housing Palestinians displaced after 21 months of war. Israel has recently expanded its military operations in the Gaza Strip, where the war has created dire humanitarian conditions for the Palestinian territory's population of more than two million. Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said that six people were killed and 15 injured in an Israeli air strike that hit the Al-Rimal clinic, "which houses hundreds of displaced people, in the Al-Rimal neighbourhood west of Gaza City."
Footage showed Palestinians, including groups of young children, combing through the bombed-out interior of the clinic, where mattresses lay alongside wood, metal and concrete broken apart in the blast. "We were surprised by missiles and explosions inside the building," eyewitness Salman Qudum said. "We did not know where to go because of the dust and destruction." In the south of the territory, Bassal said two people were killed and 20 others injured by Israeli forces' gunfire while waiting for aid near a distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). A US- and Israel-backed group, the GHF took the lead in food distribution in the territory in late May, but its operations have had a chaotic rollout with repeated reports of aid seekers killed near its facilities. In Khan Yunis in the south, Bassal reported two people killed in an air strike on a house and another killed by Israeli gunfire. An air strike on a house in Gaza City killed one and injured several others, he added.
Meanwhile, Hamas and Israel were resuming talks in Qatar on Monday, a Palestinian official said, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu travelled to Washington to meet President Donald Trump, who has pushed for a "deal this week" between the foes. The latest round of negotiations on the war in Gaza began on Sunday in Doha, aiming to broker a ceasefire and reach an agreement on the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. "Indirect negotiations are scheduled to take place before noon today in Doha between the Hamas and Israeli delegations to continue discussions" on the proposal, a Palestinian official familiar with the negotiations said.
Ahead of Netanyahu's third visit since Trump's return to office this year, the US president said there was a "good chance" of reaching an agreement. "We've gotten a lot of the hostages out, but pertaining to the remaining hostages, quite a few of them will be coming out," he told journalists. Netanyahu, speaking before heading to Washington, said his meeting with Trump could "definitely help advance this" deal. The US president is pushing for a truce in the Gaza Strip, plunged into a humanitarian crisis after nearly two years of war. Netanyahu said he dispatched the team to Doha with "clear instructions" to reach an agreement "under the conditions that we have agreed to". He previously said Hamas's response to a draft US-backed ceasefire proposal, conveyed through Qatari and Egyptian mediators, contained "unacceptable" demands.
The war has created dire humanitarian conditions for the more than two million people in the Gaza Strip. A US- and Israel-backed group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), took the lead in food distribution in the territory in late May, when Israel partially lifted a more than two-month blockade on aid deliveries. But its operations have had a chaotic rollout, with repeated reports of aid seekers killed near its facilities while awaiting rations.
UN agencies and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF over concerns it was designed to cater to Israeli military objectives. The UN human rights office said last week that more than 500 people have been killed waiting to access food from GHF distribution points. The health ministry in Gaza on Sunday placed that toll even higher, at 751 killed. Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 57,418 people in Gaza, mostly civilians. — AFP
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