54 killed in Israeli strikes; fate of captive unknown

Gaza's civil defence agency reported that Israeli air strikes killed at least 54 people on Saturday, adding the toll was expected to climb.

"Fifty-four people have been killed in Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip since dawn today... and the number is likely to rise as the bombing continues until this moment," agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.

The fate of a US-Israeli hostage who Hamas said had featured in an Israeli truce proposal remains unknown, the resistance group said yesterday, separately releasing a video of another hostage alive.

The body of a guard assigned to the American-Israeli, Edan Alexander, had been recovered from the site of a recent Israeli strike, Hamas's armed wing the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades said.

"But the fate of the prisoner and the rest of the captors remains unknown," the group said.

Hamas on Thursday signalled its rejection of the plan which would have involved Alexander.

A senior Hamas official had on Monday said Israel proposed a 45-day ceasefire in exchange for the release of 10 living hostages, the first of which would have been the Israeli-American.

Alexander is among the dozens of living and dead captives still held in Gaza, 18 months after Hamas's war with Israel began.

On Tuesday, Hamas announced it had "lost contact" with the unit holding Alexander following an Israeli air strike on their location in the Gaza Strip.

"We are trying to protect all the prisoners (hostages) and preserve their lives despite the brutality of the aggression... but their lives are in danger due to the criminal bombing operations carried out by the enemy army," Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas's armed wing, said.

Israel resumed its intense air strikes and ground offensive across Gaza on March 18 amid disagreement over the next phase in a ceasefire that for two months had largely halted the fighting.

Since then, at least 1,783 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

Israel yesterday announced its first military fatality in Gaza since the ceasefire's collapse.

Israelis rallied in Tel Aviv yesterday night in a regular ritual calling for a deal for the hostages' release.

Israel's military offensive since October 2023 has killed at least 51,157 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to the health ministry.