GAZA CITY, Palestine: At least 74 Palestinians were killed and 391 wounded in Israeli strikes over the past 24 hours, Gaza’s health ministry said on Wednesday, adding that crews have also recovered the bodies of five people killed in earlier strikes, Al Jazeera reported.
Israel’s military campaign has killed at least 56,156 people, mostly civilians, and injured 132,239 others since October 7, 2023, according to the health ministry in Gaza. The United Nations considers its figures reliable.
Of the 251 hostages seized by Hamas during the October 7, 2023 attack, 49 are still held in Gaza including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
Rights groups say Gaza and its population of more than two million face famine-like conditions due to Israeli restrictions, with near-daily deaths of people queuing for food aid.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said Wednesday that Israeli fire killed at least another 20 people, including six who were waiting for aid.
Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that a crowd of aid-seekers was hit by Israeli “bullets and tank shells” in an area of central Gaza where Palestinians have gathered each night in the hope of collecting rations.
The Israeli military said it was “not aware of any incident this morning with casualties in the central Gaza Strip”, AFP reported.
The United Nations on Tuesday condemned the “weaponisation of food” in Gaza and slammed a US- and Israeli-backed foundation that has largely replaced established humanitarian organisations there.
The privately run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) was brought into the Palestinian territory at the end of May but its operations have been marred by chaotic scenes, deaths and neutrality concerns.
The GHF has denied responsibility for deaths near its aid points.
The Gaza health ministry says that since late May, nearly 550 people have been killed near aid centres while seeking scarce supplies.
The civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed 46 people waiting for aid on Tuesday. – Agencies
Trump claims progress towards ceasefire
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that “great progress” was being made to end the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza as a new ceasefire push began more than 20 months after the start of the conflict.
“I think great progress is being made on Gaza,” Trump told reporters ahead of a NATO summit in the Netherlands, adding that his special envoy Steve Witkoff had told him “Gaza is very close.”
He linked his optimism about imminent “very good news” for the Gaza Strip to a ceasefire agreed on Tuesday between Israel and Iran to end their 12-day war.
Key mediator Qatar announced Tuesday that it would launch a new push for a ceasefire, with Hamas on Wednesday saying talks had “intensified”.
“Our communications with the brother mediators in Egypt and Qatar have not stopped and have intensified in recent hours,” Hamas official Taher al-Nunu told AFP.
He cautioned, however, that the group had “not yet received any new proposals” to end the war.
The Israeli government declined to comment on any new ceasefire talks beyond saying that efforts to return Israeli hostages in Gaza were ongoing “on the battlefield and via negotiations”.
