Israel kills 25 more Gazans as Blinken arrives for truce talks

CAIRO: Israeli strikes killed at least 25 people, including six children, in Gaza on Sunday, Palestinian health authorities said, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken dashed to Tel Aviv in a bid to push forward Gaza ceasefire negotiations.

The children and their mother were murdered in an Israeli hit on a house in Deir Al-Balah, according to health authorities, while the Israeli military claimed to have destroyed rocket launchers deployed from the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis and killed 20 Palestinians.

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As the latest attacks brought the death toll among Palestinians, largely civilians, to 40,099 since October of last year, diplomatic attempts for a truce have escalated. Talks mediated by the US, Egypt, and Qatar are scheduled to resume this week in Cairo, following the Doha meeting, which was boycotted by Hamas following the death of its leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Secretary Blinken, who landed in Tel Aviv on Sunday, will meet separately with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and President Isaac Herzog on Monday before traveling to Egypt on Tuesday.

‘What was their crime?’

Earlier, at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, family gathered around the remains of the mother and her six children, who were covered in white shrouds. At the burial, their grandpa Mohammed Khattab revealed that the youngest was 18 months old.

“What was their crime?” … Did they murder a Jew? Did they shoot at Jews? Were rockets launched against the Jews? Did they demolish the State of Israel? What did they do? “What did they do to deserve this?” Khattab said.

After ten months of fighting, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are constantly desperate to find a safe haven.

“We’re tired of being displaced.” “People are being pushed into narrow areas in Deir Al-Balah and Al-Mawasi, which have become pressure cookers,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Deir Al-Balah resident. Tanks were around 1.5 kilometers away, Burai stated.

The Israeli military ordered the evacuation of regions north of Khan Yunis and east of Deir Al-Balah, where hundreds of people uprooted by previous fighting had sought refuge in deplorable conditions.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the “humanitarian area” designated as secure by Israeli forces has been reduced to around 11 percent of the region.

Meanwhile, three UN troops patrolling the neighborhood of Yarine in south Lebanon were injured by a bomb near their vehicle near Lebanon’s southern border, according to the UN Interim Force in Lebanon.