At least 60 killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza as ceasefire prospects inch closer

At least 60 peo­ple were killed across Gaza by Is­raeli strikes, health work­ers said Sat­ur­day, as Pales­tini­ans face a grow­ing hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis in Gaza and cease­fire prospects inch clos­er.

The strikes be­gan late Fri­day and con­tin­ued in­to Sat­ur­day morn­ing, among oth­ers killing 12 peo­ple near the Pales­tine Sta­di­um in Gaza City, which was shel­ter­ing dis­placed peo­ple, and eight more liv­ing in apart­ments, ac­cord­ing to staff at Shi­fa Hos­pi­tal, where the bod­ies were brought. More than 20 bod­ies were tak­en to Nass­er Hos­pi­tal, ac­cord­ing to health of­fi­cials. A strike mid­day Sat­ur­day killed 11 peo­ple on a street in east­ern Gaza City, and their bod­ies were tak­en to Al-Ahli Hos­pi­tal.

The strikes come as U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump says there could be a cease­fire agree­ment with­in the next week. Tak­ing ques­tions from re­porters in the Oval Of­fice Fri­day, the pres­i­dent said, “we’re work­ing on Gaza and try­ing to get it tak­en care of.”

An of­fi­cial with knowl­edge of the sit­u­a­tion told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press that Is­rael’s Min­is­ter for Strate­gic Af­fairs Ron Der­mer will ar­rive in Wash­ing­ton next week for talks on Gaza’s cease­fire, Iran and oth­er sub­jects. The of­fi­cial spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause they were not au­tho­rised to speak to the me­dia.

Talks have been on again off again since Is­rael broke the lat­est cease­fire in March, con­tin­u­ing its mil­i­tary cam­paign in Gaza and fur­ther­ing the Strip’s dire hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis. Some 50 hostages re­main in Gaza, few­er than half of them be­lieved to still be alive. They were part of some 250 hostages tak­en when Hamas at­tacked Is­rael on Oct. 7, 2023, spark­ing the 21-month-long war.

The war has killed over 56,000 Pales­tini­ans, ac­cord­ing to Gaza’s Health Min­istry, which does not dis­tin­guish be­tween civil­ians and com­bat­ants. It says more than half of the dead were women and chil­dren.

There is hope among hostage fam­i­lies that Trump’s in­volve­ment in se­cur­ing the re­cent cease­fire be­tween Is­rael and Iran might ex­ert more pres­sure for a deal in Gaza. Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu is rid­ing a wave of pub­lic sup­port for the Iran war and its achieve­ments, and he could feel he has more space to move to­ward end­ing the war in Gaza, some­thing his far-right gov­ern­ing part­ners op­pose.

Hamas has re­peat­ed­ly said it is pre­pared to free all the hostages in ex­change for an end to the war in Gaza. Ne­tanyahu says he will on­ly end the war once Hamas is dis­armed and ex­iled, some­thing the group has re­ject­ed.

Mean­while, hun­gry Pales­tini­ans are en­dur­ing a cat­a­stroph­ic sit­u­a­tion in Gaza. Af­ter block­ing all food for 2 1/2 months, Is­rael has al­lowed on­ly a trick­le of sup­plies in­to the ter­ri­to­ry since mid-May.

Ef­forts by the Unit­ed Na­tions to dis­trib­ute the food have been plagued by armed gangs loot­ing trucks and by crowds of des­per­ate peo­ple of­fload­ing sup­plies from con­voys.

Pales­tini­ans have al­so been shot and wound­ed while on their way to get food at new­ly formed aid sites, run by the Amer­i­can and Is­raeli-backed Gaza Hu­man­i­tar­i­an Foun­da­tion, ac­cord­ing to Gaza’s health of­fi­cials and wit­ness­es.

Pales­tin­ian wit­ness­es say Is­raeli troops have opened fire at crowds on the roads head­ing to­ward the sites. Is­rael’s mil­i­tary said it was in­ves­ti­gat­ing in­ci­dents in which civil­ians had been harmed while ap­proach­ing the sites.

DEIR AL-BAL­AH, Gaza Strip (AP) —