Israeli airstrikes kill at least 17 in Gaza overnight

Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip overnight and into Wednesday killed at least 17 people, including five children and their parents, Palestinian health officials say.

The latest strikes came on the eve of new talks aimed at reaching a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the 10-month-long war.

The United States, Qatar and Egypt are hoping to broker an agreement, but the sides remain far apart on several issues even after months of indirect negotiations.

One strike hit a family home late on Tuesday in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, which dates back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.

It killed five children, ranging in age from two to 11, and their parents, according to the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

“Decapitated”

An Associated Press reporter who saw the bodies arrive said they had been dismembered by the blast and that the two-year-old had been decapitated.

In the nearby Maghazi refugee camp, a strike on a home early on Wednesday killed four people and wounded others, the hospital said.

In the southern city of Khan Younis, the health ministry’s emergency service said they recovered the bodies of four men who were killed in a strike on a residential tower late on Tuesday.

Two more people were killed in an Israeli strike on a house in the northern town of Beit Lahiya, according to the emergency service. The strike also wounded five people.

Health authorities in Gaza do not say whether those killed in Israeli strikes are militants or civilians.

Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas because the militants operate in residential areas.

The army rarely comments on individual strikes.

Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden said achieving a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was “getting hard” but he expressed his resolve at securing an end to the hostilities.

Leaders in the US, Egypt and Qatar had hoped ceasefire talks, to reach a deal between Israel and Hamas to pause the conflict in Gaza and see Israeli hostages returned to their families and Palestinian civilians returned to their homes, would begin in Doha or Cairo on Thursday.

But Hamas official Ahmad Abdul Hadi has said the group will not take part in the talks, according to reports by Sky News and the New York Times.

“We’ll see what Iran does and we’ll see what happens if there is any attack. But I’m not giving up,” Mr Biden told reporters.

UN Security Council members have called for a Gaza ceasefire deal.

But the council, which voted in June to embrace a US proposal for a ceasefire, took no further action at Tuesday’s emergency meeting on Israel’s weekend airstrike on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza.

US ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council her country is prepared to make “a final bridging proposal: one that resolves the remaining implementation issues in a manner that meets the expectations of all parties”.

Israeli ambassador Gilad Erdan, whose country is not a council member, criticised the group for convening an urgent meeting about Saturday’s airstrike at the Tabeen school.

Israel says it targeted militant fighters operating from the school compound.

Council members voiced a range of concerns and condemned the attack.

Palestinian ambassador Riyad Mansour called on them to respond to Israel’s military campaign with sanctions, not just words.

“Israel does not care about your condemnations,” he said, twice.