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Israel has bombarded swathes of central and southern Gaza, while tanks have advanced to the western edges of the border city.
In its latest update, the Israeli military said it had killed “dozens” of Hamas militants during operations in al-Bureij refugee camp and the nearby city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. Palestinian medics in the area reported that at least 15 civilians had been killed overnight in Israeli airstrikes.
In the larger city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, an Israeli airstrike on a house killed eight people and wounded several, including children, medics added.
And in northern Gaza, three Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a Gaza City school building that was sheltering displaced families, rescue workers said. It follows a strike on a United Nations-run school in central Gaza earlier this week that killed dozens of people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
In the southernmost city of Rafah, meanwhile, tank-led forces have advanced to the southwest fringes of the city that skirts the Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt, according to accounts from local residents.
Palestinian men take part in Friday noon prayers under the shade of a tarpaulin in the Jabalia refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, as destroyed buildings can be seen in the background (Getty)
A month after the first Israeli tanks rolled across the border towards the outskirts of the city, one Palestinian resident said they believed Israel was trying to “reach the beach” on Gaza’s western Mediterranean coast.
“The raids and the bombing overnight were tactical, they entered under heavy fire and then retreated,” the resident told Reuters via a chat app.
Another resident said snipers had commandeered some buildings and high ground, trapping people in their homes, while Israeli machine gun fire had made it too dangerous to go out.
Gaza health officials added that two Palestinians had been killed and several wounded in western Rafah from tank shelling there.
It comes as sources close to the ceasefire negotiations in Qatar said there were still no signs of a breakthrough.
US-backed Qatari and Egyptian mediators have tried again this week to reconcile clashing demands that are preventing a halt to the hostilities, a release of Israeli hostages and Palestinians jailed in Israel, and an untrammelled flow of aid into Gaza to avoid a humanitarian disaster.
Israeli soldiers work with munitions on an armoured personnel carrier near the border with the Gaza Strip (Getty)
Since a brief week-long truce in November, repeated attempts to arrange a ceasefire have failed, with Hamas insisting on a permanent end to the war and full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Israel has ruled out peace until Hamas is eradicated, and much of Gaza lies in ruins, but Hamas has proved resilient, with militants resurfacing to fight in areas in which Israeli forces had previously declared they had defeated them.
Israel launched its most ferocious bombardment of Gaza ever in retaliation for the 7 October attack by Hamas on southern Israel, during which around 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 hostages taken.
Israel’s subsequent invasion and bombardment of Gaza has killed at least 36,731 people, including 77 in the past 24 hours, Gaza’s health ministry said in an update on Friday. Thousands more are feared buried dead under rubble, with most of the 2.3 million population displaced.
The latest round of indirect talks began on Wednesday, when CIA director William Burns met senior officials from Qatar and Egypt in Doha to discuss a proposal US president Joe Biden publicly endorsed last week. Mr Biden described the three-phase plan as an Israeli initiative.
Qatar said on Thursday that Hamas had not yet handed mediators its response to the latest proposal and was still studying it.
Two Egyptian security sources said ceasefire mediators were soldiering on but without any inklings of a breakthrough.
