Israeli strikes kill 34 Palestinians in Gaza

CAIRO — Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 34 Palestinians overnight and on Tuesday, medics said, as Israeli tanks pushed into areas in central and southern parts of the enclave.

An Israeli airstrike killed at least 25 people in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, where Israeli forces have operated since October, and injured dozens of others in a multistory building, medics said.

The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said most of those killed were from the same family, including women and children. Images posted online, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed the bodies lined up in a single mass grave in the town.

Another airstrike on a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed at least seven people. It wounded several others, medics and the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said, while another strike killed two people in Rafah, south of the enclave.

In Deir al-Balah near the coast, Israeli naval forces detained six Palestinian fishermen who tried to sail into the Mediterranean Sea earlier on Tuesday, according to residents.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday he would not stop the conflict in Gaza "now", with renewed efforts toward a cease-fire underway.

Speaking at a news conference in Jerusalem 14 months into the military campaign against Hamas militants, he said that "if we end the war now, Hamas will return, recover, rebuild and attack us again — and that is what we do not want to go back to".

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Oct 23 that Israel had "managed to dismantle Hamas' military capacity" and eliminated its senior leadership. With those successes, Blinken said, it was time to "get the hostages home and bring the war to an end with an understanding of what will follow".

On Tuesday, a Hamas official declined to disclose the details of negotiations but told Reuters that mediators had recently stepped up their efforts, citing the group's willingness to show the flexibility needed "to end the aggression on our people".

A Palestinian official with knowledge of the mediation efforts said Hamas had asked other Gaza factions to list the names of Israeli and foreign hostages in their custody, whether dead or alive, signaling potential progress in the talks.

In another development, Netanyahu took the witness stand for the first time on Tuesday in his long-running corruption trial, saying he was being hounded for his hawkish security policies.

Charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust, he will testify three times a week.

Netanyahu was indicted in 2019 in three cases involving gifts from millionaire friends and for allegedly seeking regulatory favors for media tycoons in return for favorable coverage. He denies any wrongdoing.

Agencies via Xinhua