Multiple Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 30 Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip, health officials said on Saturday, as officials including a Hamas delegation met in Egypt for ceasefire talks.
Nasser Hospital said the airstrike hit their home in Khan Younis and among those killed were a family of 11, including two children.
The hospital received 33 bodies in three attacks in and around the city, while Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital announced it had received three bodies in a separate attack.
The Israeli army said it was investigating the reports.
Rescue workers also recovered 16 bodies from the Hamad City area of Khan Yunis after Israeli forces partially withdrew; 10 from a residential neighborhood west of Khan Yunis and two more in Rafah, further south. The cause of death was not immediately clear, but the area had been repeatedly bombed by Israeli forces over the past week. An Associated Press reporter counted the bodies.
Some residents returned to Hamad city, trudging through rubble and wreckage among destroyed apartment buildings, with the walls of one high-rise building completely collapsed and rooms surrounded by residents shoveling through rubble.
“There’s nothing. No apartments, no furniture, no homes, just destruction,” said a woman named Neveen Kedar. “We are slowly dying. Look, if they would just give us a mercy bullet, it would be better than what’s happening to us now.”
The Israeli army said on Saturday that three reserve officers were killed in fighting in the Gaza Strip the previous day.
The army said two major generals and one lieutenant colonel were killed in central Gaza but gave no further details.
In recent weeks, Israeli forces have been engaged in fierce fighting with Palestinian militants in central Gaza, particularly in the Deir al-Balah area.
More than 100 of the hostages taken by Hamas in its Oct. 7 raid into Israel were released during a ceasefire last year, but Hamas is believed to still be holding around 110. Israeli officials estimate about a third of them have died.
More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli retaliation, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. The ministry said on Saturday that 69 people had been killed and 212 were wounded and taken to hospital across the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours.
Experts met Saturday to discuss technical issues ahead of high-level talks scheduled for Sunday in Cairo on a possible ceasefire brokered by the United States, Egypt and Qatar. CIA Director William Burns, Qatar’s foreign minister and Egypt’s intelligence chief met in Cairo on Saturday evening, according to an Egyptian official with direct knowledge of the talks.
A Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo on Saturday and met with Egyptian and Qatari officials, senior Hamas official Mahmoud Merdawi told The Associated Press, stressing that Hamas would not take a direct part in Sunday’s talks but would receive briefings from Egypt and Qatar.
The Israeli delegation that arrived on Thursday included Maj. Gen. Eliezer Toledano, head of the foreign intelligence agency Mossad and the security service Shin Bet.
CIA director and President Joe Biden’s senior Middle East adviser, Brett McGurk, is leading the U.S. negotiations amid deep differences between Israel and Hamas over Israel’s insistence on maintaining forces in two strategic corridors in the Gaza Strip.
The United States is pushing the proposal aimed at bridging the gap between Israel and Hamas amid growing concerns about a wider regional war following recent targeted killings of leaders of the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah blamed on Israel.
Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General CQ Brown Jr., is due to visit Egypt, Jordan and Israel in the coming days to “emphasize the importance of deterring further escalation of hostilities,” according to the statement.
Biden spoke by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday to stress the urgency of reaching a deal, and on Friday he discussed progress with the leaders of Qatar and Egypt.
The major sticking points are the Philadelphia Corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border and the Netzarim Corridor that runs east to west through the Gaza Strip, which Netanyahu has insisted Israel retain control of to prevent smuggling and capture militants.
Merdawi said Hamas’ position had not changed from its acceptance of an earlier draft that included a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.