CAIRO: Israeli air strikes killed 40 Palestinians on Thursday night and Friday in the Gaza Strip, as efforts to revive ceasefire talks received a boost with officials from the Palestinian group Hamas headed to Cairo for a new round of talks.

Medics said they had recovered 19 bodies of Palestinians killed in northern areas of Nuseirat, one of the enclave’s eight long-standing refugee camps.

Later on Friday, an Israeli air strike killed 10 Palestinians in a house in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza.

Others were killed in the northern and southern areas of Gaza Strip.

Israeli tanks had entered northern and western areas of Nuseirat on Thursday. They withdrew from northern areas on Friday, but remained active in western parts of the camp. The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said teams were unable to respond to distress calls from residents trapped in their homes.

Dozens of Palestinians returned on Friday to areas where the army had retreated to check on damage to their homes.

Medics and relatives covered up dead bodies, including of women, that lay on the road with blankets or white shrouds and carried them away on stretchers.

“Forgive me, my wife, forgive me, my Ibtissam, forgive me, my dear,” one grief-stricken man moaned through tears beside her corpse, laid out on a stretcher on the ground.

Medics said an Israeli drone on Friday had killed Ahmed Al-Kahlout, head of the intensive care unit at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, on the northern edge of Gaza Strip, where the Israeli army has been operating since early October. The Israeli military said it was unaware of a strike occurring in this location or timeframe.

Kamal Adwan Hospital is one of three medical facilities on the northern edge of Gaza Strip that barely function now due to shortages of medical, fuel, and food supplies. Most of its medical staff have been detained or expelled by the Israeli army.—Reuters

PPI adds: Pakistan reaffirmed its unwavering support for the inalienable right to self-determination of the Palestinian people on Friday.

In his message on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the unabated Israeli aggression.

He reiterated his call for the international community’s role for an immediate ceasefire and end to the genocide of Palestinian people.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in his message the Palestinian people were resisting heroically amid a campaign of unending genocide.

He reaffirmed Pakistan would stand by the valiant Palestinian people in their just struggle.

Published in Dawn, November 30th, 2024