CAIRO: Israeli strikes killed at least 25 people, including six children, in Gaza on Sunday, Palestinian health authorities said, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken dashed to Tel Aviv in a bid to push forward Gaza ceasefire negotiations.

The children and their mother were killed in an Israeli strike on a house in Deir Al-Balah, health officials said, while Israeli military claimed it destroyed rocket launchers being used from the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, and killed 20 Palestinians.

As the latest strikes pushed the death toll of Palestinians, mostly civilians, to 40,099 since October last year, diplomatic efforts for a ceasefire have intensified. Talks mediated by the US, Egypt and Qatar are set to continue this week in Cairo, following Doha moot which was boycotted by Hamas after the killing of its leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Secretary Blinken, who arrived in Tel Aviv on Sunday, will have separate meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defen­ce Minister Yoav Gallant and President Isaac Herzog on Monday before heading to Egypt on Tuesday.

‘What was their crime?’

Earlier, at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, relatives gathered around the bodies of the mother and her six children, who were wrapped in white shrouds. The youngest was aged 18 months, their grandfather Mohammed Khattab said at the funeral.

“What was their crime? … Did they kill a Jew? Did they shoot at the Jews? Did they launch rockets at the Jews? Did they destroy the state of Israel? What did they do? What did they do to deserve this?” said Khattab.

After 10 months of war, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are living in constant desperation to find a safe place.

“We are tired of displacement. People are being pushed into narrow areas in Deir Al-Balah and Al-Mawasi, which have become pressure cookers,” Tamer Al-Burai, who lives in Deir Al-Balah said. Tanks were just 1.5km away, Burai added.

The Israeli military ordered the evacuation of areas north of Khan Yunis and east of Deir Al-Balah where thousands of families displaced by earlier fighting had been sheltering in dire conditions.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the size of the “humanitarian area” designated as safe by Israeli forces was reduced to about 11pc of the territory.

Meanwhile, three UN peacekeepers patrolling the vicinity of Yarine, in south Lebanon, suffered injuries after a blast near their vehicle close to Lebanon’s southern border, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon said.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2024