Israeli forces kill dozens in Gaza with ceasefire talks set to resume 

At least 35 Palestinians have been killed in multiple Israeli attacks on Gaza since dawn, as high-level negotiators prepare to resume stalled ceasefire talks.

Israeli forces killed at least 19 people in the central Gaza Strip on Friday, medical sources told Al Jazeera.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said Friday was shaping up to be “another bloody day”, following a 24-hour period in which at least 71 Palestinians were killed in 34 Israeli air attacks, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office.

Abu Azzoum said gunfire in Deir el-Balah suggested a “potential military advance by Israeli ground forces” in response to a Hamas attack on an Israeli tank in the area.

Israeli fighter jets destroyed buildings in the centre of the Strip, killing journalist Omar al-Diraoui in his home in az-Zawayda – the second journalist to be killed in 24 hours.

On Thursday, it was confirmed that photographer Hassan al-Qishaoui had been killed in an Israeli attack.

Following the deaths, Gaza’s Government Media Office revised its toll of journalists killed in the enclave since the beginning of the nearly 15-month war to 202.

Meanwhile, Israel pressed on with a renewed military offensive in the north of Gaza, with Abu Azzoum reporting that Israeli forces have ordered the immediate evacuation of the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya.

Israelis also woke up to an attack early on Friday morning, with the army intercepting a missile reportedly fired from Yemen, which had set off air raid sirens in Jerusalem and central Israel.

As the attacks continued, ceasefire negotiations were expected to resume on Friday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he had authorised a delegation from the Mossad intelligence agency, the Shin Bet internal security agency and the military to continue negotiations in Qatar.

Sami al-Arian, director of the Centre for Islam and Global Affairs at Istanbul Zaim University, said Hamas could be willing to walk back one of its key demands – the immediate withdrawal of all Israeli forces from Gaza.

“There has been a lot of pressure from the mediators – particularly the Qataris and Egyptians – to be flexible on these terms,” he told Al Jazeera.

“They have assured the resistance, Hamas and other groups, that eventually Israel will withdraw,” he said.

But Ori Goldberg, a Tel Aviv-based political analyst, told Al Jazeera he does not see any grounds for optimism that a ceasefire will be agreed on at the talks, amid a lack of significant international pressure being applied on either side.

“To the best of my knowledge, Hamas is interested in a deal but not excessively, because its recruitment rates are rising the longer Israel continues its genocide in Gaza,” he said.

“Certainly, the Israeli public is interested in a deal. [But] the Israeli government? Not so much – the war serves its interests,” he said.

Key mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States have been attempting to secure a lasting deal in indirect talks for months.

The toll from the first three days of 2025 takes the number of deaths in Gaza to nearly 46,000 since Israel began its war on the enclave on October 7, 2023, following Hamas-led attacks.

The war has caused widespread destruction and displaced some 90 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, many of them multiple times.

Hamas-led forces killed some 1,200 people in Israel in attacks on October 7, 2023 and took about 250 captives.

About 100 captives are still in Gaza, although at least a third of them are believed to be dead.