At least 22 Palestinians were killed in Israeli military strikes across Gaza on Wednesday, pushing the total death toll in the besieged enclave toward 46,000.
The latest killings came as the U.S. stepped up efforts to overcome sticking points between Israel and Hamas to reach a cease-fire to end the war.
One of the airstrikes killed at least 10 people in a multi-story house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City on Wednesday, while another killed five in the nearby Zeitoun suburb, medics said.
In Deir al-Balah city in central Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are sheltering, an Israeli airstrike killed three other people.
In Jabalia, where the army has operated for more than three weeks, an Israeli airstrike killed four people, medics said.
On Tuesday, Israeli military strikes killed at least 24 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, medics said, with two airstrikes hitting tent encampments in Mawasi, to the west of the southern city of Khan Younis, killing 18 people. The dead included several women and children.
There was no comment by the Israeli military on those incidents.
As Israel continued its bombardments, the U.S., Qatar and Egypt were making the most intensive effort in months to reach a cease-fire, with one source close to the talks saying this was the most serious attempt to reach a deal so far.
The outgoing U.S. administration has called for a final push for a deal before President Joe Biden leaves office, and many in the region view President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20 as an unofficial deadline.
"Things are better than ever before, but there is no deal yet," the source told Reuters.
But with the clock ticking, both sides accuse the other of blocking a deal by adhering to conditions that have torpedoed all previous peace efforts for more than a year.
On Tuesday, Hamas stood by its demand that it would only free its remaining hostages if Israel agreed to end the war and withdraw all its troops from Gaza.
Israel says it will not end the war until Hamas is dismantled and all hostages are free. Hamas also said that Trump was rash to say there would be "hell to pay" unless the hostages go free by his inauguration.
Osama Hamdan, an official with the Palestinian resistance group, told a news conference in Algiers on Tuesday: "I think the U.S. president must make more disciplined and diplomatic statements."
Later Wednesday, The Gazan Health Ministry said that at least 51 people were killed in the Palestinian territory in the past 24 hours, taking the overall death toll to 45,936.
The ministry also said in a statement that at least 109,274 people had been wounded in more than 15 months of Israel's genocidal war, triggered by the Palestinian group's October 7, 2023 incursion.
