At least 70 people have been killed in Israeli military strikes across Gaza, the Hamas-run health ministry said, in an intensification of the bombardment as US President Donald Trump visits the Middle East.
Medics said most of the dead, including women and children, were killed in a barrage of Israeli airstrikes on houses in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza.
“Some victims are still on the road and under the rubble where rescue and civil emergency teams can’t reach (them),” the health ministry statement said.
Israel’s military said it was trying to verify the reports.
Israeli press reports cited security officials as saying they believed Hamas military leader Mohammad Sinwar and other senior officials had been killed in a strike yesterday on what the Israeli military described as a command and control bunker under the European Hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.
There was no confirmation by the Israeli military or Hamas.
Witnesses and medics said an Israeli airstrike hit a bulldozer that approached the area of the strike at the European Hospital, wounding several people.
Late yesterday, Islamic Jihad, an Iranian-backed militant group allied with Hamas, fired rockets from Gaza towards Israel. Shortly before Israel hit back, its military issued evacuation orders to residents in the area of Jabalia and nearby Beit Lahiya.
Palestinians hope Mr Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates will provide pressure for a reduction of violence. Hamas on Monday released Edan Alexander, the last known living American hostage it had been holding.
Mr Trump said in Riyadh yesterday that more hostages would follow Mr Alexander and that the people of Gaza deserved a better future. He is not visiting Israel during his Middle East trip.
Ceasefire efforts have faltered.
Hamas talked to the United States and Egyptian and Qatari mediators to arrange Mr Alexander’s release, and Israel has sent a team to Doha to begin a new round of talks.
Hamas said the continued attacks on Gaza indicated that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to “escalate the aggression and massacres against civilians to undermine those (ceasefire) efforts”.
Israel has blamed Hamas for the continuing war.
This morning, United Nations aid chief Tom Fletcher criticised an Israel-initiated and US-backed humanitarian aid distribution plan for Gaza as a “fig leaf for further violence and displacement” of Palestinians in the war-torn territory.
“It is cynical sideshow. A deliberate distraction,” Mr Fletcher told the UN Security Council.
No humanitarian aid has been delivered to Gaza since 2 March, and a global hunger monitor has warned that half a million people face starvation, a quarter of the population.
Israel proposed last week that private companies would take over handing out aid in Gaza’s south once an expanded Israeli offensive starts in its war there, which began in October 2023 after militant group Hamas attacked Israel.
Aid deliveries have been handled by international aid groups and UN organisations.
“We can save hundreds of thousands of survivors. We have rigorous mechanisms to ensure our aid gets to civilians and not to Hamas, but Israel denies us access, placing the objective of depopulating Gaza before the lives of civilians,” said Mr Fletcher.
Israel has accused Hamas of stealing aid, which the militant group denies, and is blocking deliveries until Hamas releases all remaining hostages.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has rejected Israel’s proposal, saying in April it risked “further controlling and callously limiting aid down to the last calorie and grain of flour.”
The UN says any aid distribution must be independent, impartial and neutral, in line with humanitarian principles.
Mr Fletcher said the UN has met more than a dozen times with Israeli authorities about their proposed aid distribution model to find a solution but without success.
Minimum conditions include the ability to deliver aid to all those in need wherever they are in Gaza, he said.
Amid the stalemate, the United States last week backed a mechanism for Gaza aid deliveries to be handled by private companies, an approach that appeared to resemble Israel’s proposal, but gave few initial details about the plan.
“We will not allow the old, broken system to remain in place,” Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon told the council.
“We appreciate the efforts to build a new mechanism, one grounded in accountability.”
Senior US officials were working with Israel to enable a newly established Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to “provide a secure mechanism capable of delivering aid directly to those in need, without Hamas stealing, looting or leveraging this assistance for its own ends,” acting US Ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea told the Security Council yesterday.
She urged the UN and aid groups to cooperate, saying the foundation would deliver aid consistent with humanitarian principles and would “ensure its own security so that commodities reach civilians in need.”
“While some humanitarian organisations may ultimately choose not to engage in these conversations, others have chosen a more constructive path, and they will be able to deliver aid in an appropriate way, hopefully very soon,” Ms Shea said.
Mr Fletcher said the Israeli-designed distribution model was not the answer.
This was in part because Israel said it would limit aid distribution to south Gaza during its planned offensive and people would have to relocate to access aid there.
“It forces further displacement. It exposes thousands of people to harm,” Mr Fletcher told the council. “It restricts aid to only one part of Gaza while leaving other dire needs unmet. It makes aid conditional on political and military aims. It makes starvation a bargaining chip.”
Most of the 15-member Security Council expressed concern about the proposed aid distribution plans.
“We cannot support any model that places political or military objectives above the needs of civilians. Or that undermines the UN and other partners’ ability to operate independently,” Britain, France, Slovenia, Greece and Denmark said in a joint statement before the council meeting.
The war in Gaza was triggered on 7 October 2023, when Hamas killed 1,200 people in southern Israel, and took some 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, more than 52,900 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza health authorities.
