Key Points
- Residential buildings among targets, officials say
- Hamas says it accepted latest ceasefire framework
ISLAMABAD: At least eight people were killed in overnight Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, Palestinian civil defence authorities said on Sunday, as diplomatic efforts to end the nearly two-year conflict continued despite persistent fighting.
According to Gaza civil defence officials, the strikes came shortly after midnight and hit several residential buildings across the enclave.
In central Gaza, a man and his wife were killed when an apartment was struck by an Israeli military helicopter. Several other people were wounded in the attack.
In Gaza City, an elderly man and a child were killed in another strike on an apartment building.
Israeli strikes in Khan Younis
Separately, three people, including a child, were killed after an airstrike hit an apartment northwest of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
The latest casualties came two days after Hamas announced it had accepted the latest stage of a ceasefire proposal backed by US President Donald Trump.
ALSO READ: Israeli Strikes Kill Four in Gaza, Hit Medical Supply Warehouses in Hospital
Hamas said the plan includes provisions for handing over its weapons and a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip.
Israel has not formally responded to Hamas’s announcement. However, a political source told AFP that Israeli forces would not withdraw from Gaza unless Hamas undergoes what it described as “genuine disarmament.”
On Saturday, Gaza authorities also reported eight deaths in separate Israeli strikes that damaged medical supplies at a hospital and hit a residential rooftop.
The war began after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, which Tel Aviv authorities say killed about 1,200 people and saw around 250 taken hostage.
Israel’s subsequent military campaign has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, displaced most of the enclave’s population and devastated much of its infrastructure.
According to international humanitarian organisations, such as Amnesty International, Israel has been unleashing collective punishment on innocent civilians and carrying out genocide of the Palestinian people.
Off late, Amnesty International has released a report giving shipment records as proof of its claim that India supported Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people.
