By Canadian Press

Hospital officials say an Israeli airstrike has killed 17 Palestinians in a Gaza ‘safe zone’

Jul 16, 2024 | 7:23 AM

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hospital officials say an Israeli airstrike killed 17 Palestinians on Tuesday in a military-declared “safe zone” outside the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.

Officials at Nasser Hospital said the strike hit near a gas station in Muwasi, an area packed with tent camps housing thousands of Palestinians who have fled Israeli offensives in other parts of Gaza. The site lies in a humanitarian “safe zone” where the Israeli military has told evacuating Palestinians to take refuge.

The strike raises to at least 59 the number of people killed in southern and central Gaza by strikes overnight into Tuesday.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

Israeli strikes across Gaza killed more than 30 people as Israel and Hamas continued to weigh the latest cease-fire proposal.

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In central Gaza, strikes overnight into Tuesday killed 24 people. The deaths in Nuseirat and Zawaida included 10 women and four children.

Hamas has said cease-fire talks meant to wind down the nine-month-long war would continue even after Israel targeted the militant group’s top military commander, Mohammed Deif, whose fate remained unclear. Israel says another senior Hamas militant was killed in that strike that local health officials said killed 90 Palestinians, including children.

International mediators are working to push Israel and Hamas toward a deal that would halt the fighting and free about 120 hostages held by the militant group in Gaza.

The strikes late Monday and early Tuesday hit four homes, according to emergency workers. An Associated Press journalist saw the bodies, some wrapped in blankets and a floral sheet, as they were ferried to Al Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah.

Clouds of smoke from Israeli strikes rose above the city.

The military said it “conducted targeted raids on terror targets” in central Gaza, without elaborating. It did not immediately provide details on the targets.

In southern Gaza, nine people were killed in two separate strikes overnight Monday, according to medical officials and AP journalists. Four were killed in a blast that struck a house in eastern Khan Younis and five were killed in a strike on a street in southernmost Rafah, according to ambulance workers who transported the bodies to Nasser Hospital.

An AP journalist counted the bodies at the hospital before a funeral was held at its gates.

The military said air force planes struck some 40 targets in Gaza over the past day, among them observation posts, Hamas military structures and explosives-rigged buildings.

The war in Gaza, which was sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, has killed more than 38,600 people, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The war has created a humanitarian catastrophe in the coastal Palestinian territory, displaced most of its 2.3 million population and triggered widespread hunger.

Hamas’ October attack killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and militants took about 250 hostage. About 120 remain in captivity, with about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.

Violence has also surged in the West Bank. On Tuesday a Palestinian stabbed an Israeli policeman, wounding him lightly, before another officer opened fire, killing the assailant who was identified as a 19-year-old from Gaza.

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Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Wafaa Shurafa, The Associated Press