Key events
Opening Summary
Israeli airstrikes and shootings have killed 82 Palestinians in Gaza overnight, including 38 while attempting to get humanitarian aid, hospitals and the Health Ministry said on Thursday.
Israel’s military did not have an immediate comment on the strikes, AP reports.
Five people were killed while outside sites associated with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the controversial US- and Israeli-backed aid organisation, while 33 others were killed waiting for aid trucks in other locations across the Gaza Strip.
Dozens of people were killed in airstrikes on Wednesday night and Thursday morning, including 15 people killed in strikes that hit tents in the sprawling Muwasi zone, where many displaced Palestinians are sheltering, and a strike on a school in Gaza City sheltering displaced people.
Agence France-Presse, citing Gaza’s civil defence agency, reported that the Israeli strike on Thursday hit a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in the Al-Rimal neighbourhood in western Gaza City, killing at least 12, mostly women and children. The Israeli military told AFP it “will try to look into” the report.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza has passed 57,000, including 223 missing people who have been declared dead. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its death count but says that more than half of the dead are women and children.
The Israeli military blames Hamas for the civilian casualties because it operates from populated areas. The military said it targeted Hamas militants and rocket launchers in northern Gaza that launched rockets towards Israel on Wednesday.
The deaths come as Israel and Hamas inch closer to a possible ceasefire that would end the 21-month war.
Trump said on Tuesday that Israel had agreed on terms for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza and urged Hamas to accept the deal before conditions worsen.
Hamas said on Wednesday that it was studying what Trump called a “final” ceasefire proposal for Gaza, but that Israel must pull out of the territory.
Meanwhile, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday “there will be no Hamas” in postwar Gaza.