Truce hopes slim with conflict in 12th month

GAZA/JERUSALEM — The conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza entered its 12th month on Saturday with little indication of respite for the Palestinian territory as the humanitarian disaster deepens.

Israeli military strikes across the Palestinian Gaza Strip killed at least 61 people in the space of 48 hours, medics said on Saturday.

Airstrikes on two former schools that were housing displaced people, one in Gaza City and one in Jabalia, killed at least 12 people, Palestinian medics said.

The Israeli military said the strikes targeted Hamas gunmen who were operating in the compound. Five more people were killed in a strike on a house in Gaza City, Palestinian medics said, with a total of 28 people killed on Saturday.

International mediators have all been mediating to bring about a cease-fire in the conflict, which authorities in Hamas-run Gaza say has killed at least 40,939 people.

Hamas' Oct 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of about 1,200 people, according to Israeli official figures.

Tens of thousands of Israelis joined protests in Tel Aviv and other cities, demanding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government make a deal under which the remaining about 100 hostages would be released.

Scores were released during a one-week truce in November.

Hamas is demanding a complete Israeli withdrawal, but Netanyahu insists troops must remain along the Gaza-Egypt border.

International pressure to end the conflict was further underlined by Friday's fatal shooting in the occupied West Bank of Turkish-American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who was demonstrating against Israeli settlements in the territory.

Eygi's family demanded an independent investigation into her death, saying her life "was taken needlessly, unlawfully, and violently by the Israeli military".

The UN rights office said Israeli forces killed Eygi, 26, with a "shot in the head".

Turkiye said she was killed by "Israeli occupation soldiers", while the United States called her death "tragic" and pressed Israel to investigate.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced Israel as a "barbaric" state and urged Muslim nations to forge an "alliance "against Israel, saying: "It is an Islamic duty for us to stand against Israel's state terror. It is a religious duty."

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz responded by saying that Erdogan "continues to throw the Turkish people into the fire of hatred and violence for the sake of his Hamas friends".

A gunman opened fire on Sunday at the Allenby Bridge, a key crossing point between the West Bank and Jordan, killing three people before being shot dead by Israeli forces, Israeli officials said.

The Israel Defense Forces described the incident at the crossing jointly controlled by Israel and Jordan as a shooting attack. Police confirmed the assailant had been shot dead.

Fears have been raised over the widening of the conflict. Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah movement also exchanged fire.

Hezbollah had announced a string of attacks on Israeli troops and positions near the border on Saturday, while Israel's military said it had intercepted missiles detected crossing from Lebanon and struck a Hezbollah launch site in the country's south.

Lebanon's health ministry said three emergency personnel were killed and two others wounded in an Israeli attack on a civil defense team putting out fires in south Lebanon.

Hezbollah later announced retaliatory rocket fire targeting a town in northern Israel "in response to the enemy attacks … and particularly the attack" that killed the emergency workers.

Despite the truce deadlock, the United Nations, in collaboration with local health authorities, has pursued a campaign to vaccinate 640,000 children in Gaza after its first polio case in around 25 years. Limited pauses in the fighting have allowed the campaign to proceed.

UN officials said they were making progress, having reached more than half of the children requiring the drops in the first two stages in the southern and central Gaza Strip.

On Sunday, the campaign is expected to move to the northern Gaza Strip. A second round of vaccination will be required four weeks after the first.

Agencies - Xinhua