Israeli strike on Gaza post office kills 30, peace diplomacy steps up

An Israeli strike on a post office sheltering Gaza residents killed at least 30 Palestinians and wounded 50, medics said, with the Israeli military stating it had been targeting a senior Islamic Jihad member.

Families displaced by the 14-month-old conflict had sought refuge in the postal facility in the Nuseirat camp, and the strike late on Thursday brought the day's death toll in the enclave to 66, according to the medics.

Israel said its target was an Islamic Jihad leader of attacks on Israeli civilians and troops and accused the militant group of exploiting civilian infrastructure and population as a human shield for its activities. An Israeli military statement said it was reviewing reports on the number of casualties.

The Government Media Office in Gaza called the Thursday attack a "barbaric and heinous massacre," noting that most of those killed hailed from the al-Sheikh Ali family.

"The Israeli occupation army knew that this is a residential block with many apartment buildings housing dozens of civilians, children, women and displaced people," the office said.

Nuseirat is one of the Gaza Strip's eight historic camps originally for Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war around the establishment of Israel. It is now part of a dense urban area crowded with displaced people.

Earlier on Thursday, two Israeli strikes in southern Gaza killed 13 Palestinians who Gaza medics and Hamas said were part of a force protecting humanitarian aid trucks. Israel's military said they were Hamas militants trying to hijack the shipment.

Many of those killed in the attacks on Rafah and Khan Younis had links to Hamas, according to sources close to the militant group.

The Israeli military said in a statement the two airstrikes aimed to ensure the safe delivery of humanitarian aid and accused Hamas members of planning to prevent the aid from reaching Gaza civilians who need it.

Armed gangs have repeatedly hijacked aid trucks, and Hamas has formed a task force to confront them. The Hamas-led forces have killed over two dozen members of the gangs in recent months, Hamas sources and medics said.

Hamas said Israeli military strikes have killed at least 700 police tasked with securing aid trucks in Gaza since the war began on October 7, 2023.

Separately, the Israeli military on Thursday ordered residents of several districts in the heart of Gaza City to evacuate, saying it would respond to rockets fired from those areas. 

Months of ceasefire efforts by Arab mediators, Egypt and Qatar, backed by the U.S., have failed to conclude a deal. U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in Tel Aviv on Thursday he believed a deal on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release may be close as Israel had signalled it was ready and there were signs of movement from Hamas.