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Israeli forces pulled back from parts of Gaza City overnight, after a fierce, week-long offensive that met with Hamas resistance, leaving dozens of dead and wrecked homes and roads in the Palestinian enclave’s biggest urban area, rescuers said.
The offensive, 10 months into Israel’s campaign to eliminate Hamas, took place as US-backed mediators sought to finalise a peace deal that would free remaining hostages taken by the militants in their cross-border rampage on October 7.
The Gaza Civil Emergency Service said teams had collected around 60 bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces over the past week from the area of Tel Al Hawa and the edges of the Sabra neighbourhood in Gaza City.
While tanks withdrew from some areas, Israeli snipers and tanks continued to control some high ground, residents and rescue teams said, warning residents against trying to return.
“There are bodies scattered in the streets, dismembered bodies, there are bodies of entire families, there are also bodies inside a home of an entire family that was completely burned,” Gaza Strip Civil Defence spokesperson Mahmoud Basal said yesterday in comments carried by media in Hamas-run Gaza.
The armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they had attacked Israeli forces with anti-tank rockets and mortar fire, killing and wounding many. There has been no Israeli army comment on those claims.
In Khan Younis in the southern Gaza, Hamas media said four people working for the Al Khair Foundation, a Muslim NGO based in Britain and Turkey, were killed in an air strike at an aid distribution centre.
Arab mediators, backed by the United States, are trying to reach a ceasefire deal that would free Israelis held hostage by Hamas in return for many Palestinians jailed by Israel.
Yesterday, a senior Hamas official blamed Israel for a failure to build on momentum created when the Islamist faction dropped a key demand in the US-drafted ceasefire offer a week ago to clear the way for a deal.
“Israel hasn’t given a clear stance over Hamas proposal,” the official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters, accusing Israel of “stalling and wasting time.”
Two Egyptian sources said that talks had made progress but security arrangements and ceasefire guarantees were still being worked on.
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