Gaza's civil defence agency said on Thursday that a rash of Israeli air strikes killed at least 40 people, most of them in encampments for displaced civilians, as Israel pressed its offensive in the Palestinian territory.
The Israeli military said it was looking into reports of the strikes, which came as resistance group Hamas said that internal deliberations on the latest Israeli truce offer were nearly complete.
Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said two Israeli missiles hit several tents in the Al-Mawasi area of the southern city of Khan Younis, resulting in at least 16 deaths, "most of them women and children, and 23 others were wounded".
Survivors described a large explosion at the densely packed encampment zone that set multiple tents ablaze.
Bassal said that Israeli strikes on two other encampments of displaced Gazans killed a further nine people — seven in the northern town of Beit Lahia, and a father and son near Al-Mawasi.
Separately, the civil defence reported two more attacks on displaced people in Jabalia — one that killed at least seven members of the Asaliya family, and another that killed six people at a school being used as a shelter — as well as Israeli shelling in Gaza City that killed two.
Israel said Wednesday that it had converted 30 % of Gaza into a buffer zone in the widening offensive it resumed in March, ending a two-month ceasefire.
Defence Minister Israel Katz said this month that the military was leaving Gaza "smaller and more isolated".
The UN said half a million Palestinians have been displaced since the offensive resumed, triggering what it has described as the most severe humanitarian crisis since the war began on October 7, 2023.
"Every single person in Gaza is relying on humanitarian aid to survive," the chief executives of 12 NGOs, including Oxfam and Save the Children, wrote in a joint statement.
"That lifeline has been completely cut off since a blockade on all aid supplies was imposed by Israeli authorities on March 2," they said, adding that "This is one of the worst humanitarian failures of our generation." The leader of Qatar, which along with Egypt and the US helped mediate the January ceasefire deal, blamed Israel on Thursday for its collapse.
In parallel to the Gaza offensive, Hamas said Israel had proposed a new 45-day ceasefire through mediators that would include the release of dozens of hostages.
The proposal also called for Hamas to disarm to secure a complete end to the war, a demand the group rejects.
Two Hamas officials said Thursday that internal discussions on the truce proposal were nearly complete, with one telling AFP "the group will send its response to the mediators once they finish, possibly on Thursday".
Israel's renewed assault has so far killed at least 1,691 people in Gaza, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory reported, bringing the overall toll since the war erupted to 51,065, most of them civilians.
A boy reacts at the site where Palestinian man Ghassan Asaliya, his wife and all their 5 children were killed in an Israeli strike on their tent , in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday
