CAIRO: The Israeli military killed at least 39 Palestinians in strikes across the Gaza Strip overnight, medics said on Thursday, including at least 20 in an attack that set ablaze tents sheltering displaced families in a crowded camp.

Residents carried a body wrapped in carpets out of the charred wreckage of the makeshift shelters in Mawasi, near the beach west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, where tens of thousands of people have sheltered for months.

Israel calls the area a humanitarian zone and has long told people to go there for their safety.

Mourners said the latest attacks demonstrated that a new declaration from international human rights group Amnesty International that Israel was guilty of genocide in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International’s Israel branch distanced itself on Thursday from the rights group’s allegation that Israel was committing “genocide” in Gaza but said “serious crimes” were potentially taking place that needed investigation.

Gaza medics said the 20 confirmed dead in the Israeli strike there included women and children.

Amnesty’s Israel branch rejects ‘genocide’ claim, but calls for probing ‘serious crimes’

Later on Thursday, Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya in the north of the enclave, said a 16-year-old boy who used a wheelchair was killed and several people, including medics, were wounded by Israeli drone fire against the medical facility.

The health ministry said the three hospitals that are barely operational on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip have come under repeated attack since Israeli forces sent tanks to Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun towns and the nearby Jabalia camp in October.

The strike at Mawasi set several large tents ablaze and exploding cooking gas canisters and burning furniture fuelled the fire.

The area was strewn with charred clothing, mattresses and other belongings among the twisted frames of burnt-out shelters.

“We don’t see anyone from the whole world standing by us or helping us in this situation. Let them stop this crazy war that’s against us. Let them stop the war,” said Abu Kamal Al Assar, a witness at the site.

Other Israeli strikes reported on Thursday hit Gaza City, where medics said an attack destroyed a house where an extended family had taken shelter and damaged two nearby homes, killed at least three people.

In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, an Israeli strike killed three Palestinians on Thursday, medics said. Three others were killed in a separate air strike in Shejaia, in eastern Gaza City, they added.

Mediation talks

Qatar has resumed its role as a mediator in efforts to secure a truce in the Israel-Hamas conflict following a brief suspension, a source with knowledge of the talks said on Thursday.

The Gulf emirate, along with the United States and Egypt, had been involved in months of unsuccessful negotiations for a Gaza truce and prisoner release after nearly 14 months of conflict.

In November, Doha announced it had put its mediation on hold, saying it would resume when Hamas and Israel showed “willingness and seriousness”.

The source said that Qatar has now “returned to mediation”, without elaborating on any recent meetings between officials.

Scores of prisoners were released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails during a one-week pause in fighting brokered by Qatar last year.

Since then, successive rounds of negotiations have made no headway.

US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday warned on social media of unspecified massive repercussions if prisoners are not released by the time he takes office next month.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked Trump on Tuesday for his “strong statement” on social media.

Israel’s brutal campaign has killed 44,580 people in the Gaza Strip, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2024