World
Nine reported killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza as Egypt hosts new round of talks
Israeli strikes on a Hamas police post and a vehicle in the Gaza Strip on Sunday killed at least nine people and wounded 20, health officials said, as mediators began new efforts to salvage a fragile US-brokered ceasefire deal and Israel doubled down on its commitment to disarming the terror group.
One strike hit a Hamas police post in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, adjacent to a large tent encampment of displaced families. Five people were killed, and 16 were wounded, medics said, without clarifying how many of the casualties were police.
The IDF said the strike targeted a Hamas command center.
Later on Sunday, a strike near the Burak School in western Gaza City killed four people, according to Hamas-affiliated media outlets. Medics said the strike hit a vehicle as it drove through the city.
An IDF spokesman told AFP that Israeli forces struck “two Hamas terrorists” in the incident.
Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital confirmed that it received four bodies following the strike in the city.
Meanwhile, Nasser Hospital said it received five bodies following the earlier strike in Khan Younis and was treating the wounded, some of them in “critical condition.”
In a separate incident, the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah said it received the body of a fisherman shot dead by Israeli naval forces in the early hours of Sunday.
The IDF said it was looking into the incident.
Since the start of the war in October 2023, Israel has enforced strict restrictions on access to the sea in Gaza, including opening fire on fishermen.
Major fighting in Gaza has been paused since October under a ceasefire, after two years of war sparked by the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack, but no agreement has been reached to implement a further US-backed plan for Israeli troops to withdraw, Hamas to disarm and Gaza to be rebuilt.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, in a visit to the Gaza Strip on Sunday, said the military was continuing to “erode Hamas’s power” until it achieves its goal of disarming the terror group.
“We will continue to operate until achieving the goal of disarming Hamas. This is a goal we are not giving up on,” he said in remarks provided by the IDF.
Israeli troops were left in control of around 53 percent of the war-torn Palestinian enclave following the ceasefire in October, but in the months since, they have pushed past those lines and now control some 60% of the Strip, having ordered residents out and destroyed remaining buildings. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last month that he ordered troops to take control of 70% of the Strip, and did not rule out pushing further still in the future.
Nearly the entire population of roughly 2.3 million Gazans now lives in a tiny strip along the coast, mainly in makeshift tents or damaged buildings, under Hamas control.
The terror group’s nearly 10,000 police officers have emerged as a sticking point in talks to advance US President Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza. Hamas wants them included in a new police force, while Israel rejects the terror group’s inclusion in any capacity.
Egypt hosts new round of talks
Egypt began hosting a new round of truce talks with leaders from Hamas and other Palestinian factions on Sunday, sources from Hamas and other sources close to the negotiations said. The talks are expected to last for a few days.
Israel and Hamas have repeatedly accused each other of violating the truce. Israeli strikes in Gaza have killed more than 950 Palestinians since the start of the truce, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between combatants and civilians.
Palestinian terror operatives have killed four Israeli soldiers in the same period, and a fifth soldier was killed in the Strip in a friendly fire incident.
Last year’s deal established a Board of Peace led by Trump to oversee a phased ceasefire and was ratified by the United Nations Security Council.
However, discussions on many of the toughest areas of dispute, including the disarmament of Hamas, Israeli withdrawal and makeup of a Gaza government, were postponed to later in the process. The Board of Peace negotiators have been talking to both sides on the disarmament issue.
Hamas told envoys from the Board of Peace and mediators Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey that ending Israeli attacks in Gaza was essential for any progress, sources from the group and officials close to the talks said.
Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesperson in Gaza, said on Sunday the group was open to ideas that would lead to ending Israeli attacks in Gaza and reaching common ground over issues of the second phase of the Trump plan. But he said the Board of Peace should stop being “biased” toward Israel.
Nearly 73,000 people in Gaza have been killed since the war started, most of them civilians, according to Gaza health authorities. The IDF says it has killed over 23,000 combatants in Gaza and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas, including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
Agencies contributed to this report.
