Israeli forces unleashed heavy strikes on Gaza City on Wednesday ahead of a planned takeover, killing 123 people in the past 24 hours, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, as Hamas held new talks with Egyptian mediators.
It was the enclave’s deadliest day in a week, adding to the staggering toll from a nearly two-year war that has devastated the territory’s 2.3 million residents.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again promoted a proposal – also championed by U.S. President Donald Trump – that Palestinians should be allowed to leave Gaza. “They’re not being pushed out; they’ll be allowed to exit,” Netanyahu told Israel’s i24NEWS. “Those who claim to care about the Palestinians should open their gates and stop lecturing us.”
The idea has drawn condemnation from Arab states and many global leaders, who say it amounts to mass displacement.
Palestinians warn it would mirror the 1948 Nakba – the “catastrophe” in which hundreds of thousands were forced from their homes during the Arab-Israeli war.
Israel’s planned re-seizure of Gaza City – which it took in the early days of the war before withdrawing – is likely weeks away, officials said.
That means a cease-fire is still possible, though talks have faltered and fighting continues.
Israeli planes and tanks bombed eastern areas of Gaza City heavily, residents said, with many homes destroyed in the Zeitoun and Shejaia neighborhoods overnight. Al-Ahli Hospital said 12 people were killed in an airstrike on a home in Zeitoun.
Tanks also destroyed several houses in the east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, while in the center of the territory, Israeli gunfire killed nine aid-seekers in two separate incidents, Palestinian medics said. The Israeli military did not comment.
Eight more people, including three children, have died of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza in the past 24 hours, the territory’s health ministry said. That brought the total to 235, including 106 children, since the war began.
Israel disputes the malnutrition and hunger figures reported by the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave.
Hamas chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya’s meetings with Egyptian officials in Cairo on Wednesday focused on stopping the war, delivering aid and “ending the suffering of our people in Gaza,” Hamas official Taher al-Nono said in a statement.
Egyptian security sources said the talks would also discuss the possibility of a comprehensive cease-fire that would see Hamas relinquish governance in Gaza and surrender its weapons.
A Hamas official told Reuters the group was open to all ideas if Israel ends the war and withdraws.
However, “Laying down arms before the occupation is dismissed is impossible,” the official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.
Netanyahu’s plan to expand military control over Gaza, which Israeli sources said could be launched in October, has heightened global outcry over the widespread devastation, displacement and hunger in the enclave.
About half of Gaza’s residents live in the Gaza City area.
Foreign ministers of 24 countries, including Britain, Canada, Australia, France and Japan, said this week the humanitarian crisis in Gaza had reached “unimaginable levels” and urged Israel to allow unrestricted aid.
Israel denies responsibility for hunger, accusing Hamas of stealing aid. It says it has taken steps to increase deliveries, including daily combat pauses in some areas and protected routes for aid convoys.
The Israeli military said Wednesday that nearly 320 trucks entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom and Zikim crossings and that nearly 320 more were collected and distributed by the U.N. and international organizations in the past 24 hours, along with three tankers of fuel and 97 pallets of air-dropped aid.
The U.N. and Palestinians say aid entering Gaza remains far from sufficient.
The war began Oct. 7, 2023, following Hamas' incursion into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
Israel’s offensive against Hamas in Gaza since then has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials.
