Gaza rescuers say Israeli strikes kill at least 12 Palestinians

Smoke rises over the northern Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, as seen from near Sderot in southern Israel, December 18, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli strikes on Monday (December 16, 2024) across the territory killed at least 12 people, the majority displaced Palestinians taking shelter in a house in the north.

More than 14 months into the Israel-Hamas war, the violence raged on even as the United States expressed “cautious optimism” about the prospects of reaching a ceasefire in Gaza.

Also Read | U.N. General Assembly demands ceasefire in Gaza, backs UNRWA

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that 10 Palestinians were killed when an Israeli strike at dawn hit a house in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahia, where several displaced families had sought refuge.

Later on Wednesday, the director of Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia said that “gunfire and tank shells” caused a fire in the intensive care unit, with some patients suffering burns.

Hospital director Hossam Abu Safia told AFP that staff had to quickly move all patients out of the intensive care unit.

The Israeli military said it was looking into the incident.

Elsewhere in northern Gaza, Bassal said a child was killed and several others wounded in a strike that hit a house in Jabalia, where Israeli forces have focused their operations in recent months.

Overnight, a tent in an Israeli-designated safe zone in the southern Gaza Strip was hit, killing one Palestinian, according to the civil defence spokesman.

Parties to long-stalled ceasefire talks said a deal could be secured soon to halt the fighting and release hostages held in Gaza.

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Tuesday that “cautious optimism is a fair way to characterise it, though very much tempered by realism”.

Hamas said the current talks were “serious and positive”, while Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz described the two sides as closer to a deal than ever before.

Also Read | Israel Minister says to maintain Gaza ‘security control’ after war

The war was sparked by an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 45,059 people, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.