As Israeli military strikes killed at least 40 Palestinians over the past day in the Gaza Strip, according to medics, efforts to revive Gaza ceasefire talks have received a boost with officials from Hamas headed to Cairo for a new round of talks, Reuters reports.

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 at least 10 Palestinians in a house in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, medics said. Others were killed in the northern and southern areas of the Gaza Strip, medics added.

Dozens of Palestinians returned yesterday 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.