At least 11 Palestinians killed in West Bank as Gaza talks held in Qatar
GAZA STRIP
At least 11 Palestinians were killed in Israeli raids and strikes in several towns in the north of the occupied West Bank Wednesday, as talks aiming to secure a Gaza truce and hostage release deal continued in Qatar, a U.S. official said.
Neither Israel nor Hamas has confirmed their participation.
Two Palestinians were killed in the city of Jenin, four others in a nearby village, and four more in a refugee camp near the town of Tubas, said the Red Crescent's Ahmed Jibril.
He added that 15 others had been wounded.
The Israeli army said early Wednesday it was carrying out an "operation to thwart terrorism in Jenin and Tulkarm" in the northern West Bank.
The operation comes two days after Israel said it carried out an air strike on the West Bank that the Palestinian Authority reported killed five people.
Violence in the West Bank has surged alongside the war in Gaza, with more than 640 Palestinians killed by Israeli troops and settlers since Hamas's Oct. 7 attack, according to Palestinian health ministry figures.
At least 19 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks during the same period, according to Israeli officials.
Violence, meanwhile, raged on in the war that has ravaged the Gaza Strip, displaced nearly all of its 2.4 million people at least once, and triggered a humanitarian crisis.
The civil defense agency in the Hamas-run territory said separate Israeli strikes killed at least 15 people in Gaza City and in two refugee camps in central and southern Gaza.
The Israeli military said a hostage was rescued Tuesday from a Gaza tunnel, more than 10 months after the Israeli Bedouin man was seized during the Hamas attack that triggered a devastating war.
U.S. claims talks progress
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has faced growing criticism from protesters accusing him of blocking a deal and prolonging the war for political gain, said Israel was "working tirelessly to bring all our hostages back."
Hostage rescues are rare, with Alkadi being the eighth freed alive by Israeli forces since the military began its ground operations in the Gaza Strip on Oct. 27.
Scores were released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israel during a week-long truce in November—the only one in the war so far.
In a video issued by Netanyahu's office after he spoke with Alkadi, the hawkish leader said "military presence on the ground and continuous military pressure on Hamas" are required to secure the captives' release.
A key sticking point in negotiations has been Israel's insistence on keeping control of a Gaza-Egypt border strip to stop Hamas from rearming—something the militant group has refused to countenance.
Egyptian state-linked Al-Qahera News has said Cairo, which has been mediating the talks alongside Qatar and the United States, "will not accept any Israeli presence" on the so-called Philadelphi Corridor on the border.
The United States, Israel's top arms provider, struck a cautious note of optimism on Monday.
U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby reported "progress" in mediation efforts and said more talks involving lower-level "working groups" were expected in the coming days.
'Indiscriminate'
The Oct. 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people, mostly civilians, according to official Israeli figures.
Israel's retaliatory military campaign since then has killed at least 40,476 people in Gaza, according to the territory's health ministry. The U.N. rights office says most of the dead are women and children.
In the latest violence, an Israeli strike on central Gaza's Al-Maghazi refugee camp killed at least seven people, including three children from the same family, according to civil defense rescuers.
"We woke up to the sound of the explosion and shrapnel flying at us," said Mohammed Yussef, who witnessed the strike.
"There is no safe area in Gaza. Where do we go?"
A strike later on Tuesday on a house in Gaza City killed a woman and her three children, the civil defense agency said.
After the latest in a string of Israeli evacuation orders, the U.N. humanitarian office OCHA said its "ability to deliver essential support and services" had been "severely" hampered.
Amnesty International said two Israeli strikes on southern Gaza that killed at least 59 people in late May were "indiscriminate" and "should be investigated as war crimes."
The rights group said its investigation had found that "Israeli forces failed to take all feasible precautions to avoid or minimize harm to civilians" while targeting Palestinian militants at displacement camps.