Israel pushes Gaza offensive hours after lethal airstrike on tent camp

Israeli forces pressed their offensive in north and central Gaza on Wednesday, hours after an airstrike on a tent encampment that Palestinian officials said killed more than two dozen people and as negotiations to end the fighting were set to resume.

Leaflets were dropped on Gaza City, this time with a map marking "safe routes" for the evacuation of the whole city, not just certain districts. The Israeli leaflets urge civilians to head south along two routes to the central Gaza Strip.

Hamas said the renewed Israeli campaign killed more than 60 Palestinians across the enclave on Tuesday and threatened to derail efforts to secure a ceasefire in the nine-month-old war with talks to resume in Doha on Wednesday.

The airstrike hit the tents of displaced families outside a school in the town of Abassan east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, killing at least 29 people, most of them women and children, Palestinian medical officials said.

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Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, said Israeli strikes on central Gaza areas killed 60 Palestinians and wounded dozens of others on Tuesday.

"We hold the occupation and the U.S. administration responsible for the horrifying massacres against civilians," said Thawabta.

The Israeli military said it was reviewing reports that civilians were harmed. It said the incident occurred when it struck with "precise munition" a Hamas fighter who took part in the October 7 raid on Israel that precipitated the Israeli assault on Gaza.

Deeping incursion

On Wednesday, Israeli forces deepened their incursion into two Gaza City districts. Soldiers carried out house-to-house searches in some areas and tanks shelled several homes, according to residents.

Israeli forces patrolled the main road to the coast, snipers commandeered rooftops of some high-rise buildings still standing and tanks were stationed inside the headquarters of the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, residents said.

The Israeli military said in a statement its forces were continuing operations in Gaza City against militants of Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad, who they said had operated from inside the UNRWA facilities, using it as a base for attacks.

"After a defined corridor was opened to facilitate the evacuation of civilians from the area, IDF troops conducted a targeted raid on the structure, eliminated terrorists in close-quarters combat, and located large amounts of weapons in the area," the military said.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said it had received dozens of desperate calls from residents in Gaza City trapped in their homes but their teams were unable to reach them because of the intensity of the bombing.

Video on social media showed families packed onto donkey carts and in the backs of trucks piled with mattresses and other belongings making their way through Gaza City's streets to flee areas under Israeli evacuation orders.

"Gaza City is being wiped out. This is what is happening. Israel is forcing us to leave homes under fire," said Um Tamer. The mother of seven said it was the seventh time her family had fled their house in Gaza City.

"We can't take it anymore, enough of death and humiliation. End the war now," she added.

The armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said fighters fought with Israeli forces operating in the area with anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs, and sometimes in close-range combat.

In the central Gaza camp of Al-Nuseirat, medics said six Palestinians, including children, were killed in an airstrike on a house early on Wednesday, while another airstrike killed two people and wounded several others in Khan Younis.

More than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, health officials in the Hamas-run territory said. The war erupted when militants led by Hamas infiltrated southern Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli figures.

Hopes among Gazans of a pause in the fighting had revived after Hamas last week accepted a key part of a U.S. ceasefire proposal. Qatari and Egyptian mediators, backed by the United States, have accelerated efforts this week and talks will resume in Doha on Wednesday, Egypt's state-affiliated media said.

Israel says 60% of Hamas fighters killed

Israel's Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, said on Wednesday that 60 percent of Hamas fighters had been killed or wounded as a result of Israel's military offensive in Gaza.

Speaking in the Israeli parliament, he said Israel had broken up the majority of the 24 battalions that Hamas's military wing had at the start of the war.

Gallant also said that draft notices would be delivered in the next few weeks to some ultra-Orthodox Jews who had previously been exempt from serving in the Israeli military. Israel's Supreme Court ruled last month that the defense ministry must end the longstanding exemption for ultra-Orthodox Jews from mandatory military service.

The fractious coalition government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu relies on two ultra-Orthodox parties who oppose the end of the exemption. However, the armed forces say they need more recruits to keep Israel safe and sustain the war against the Hamas militant group in Gaza.

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