DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (news agencies) — Israeli strikes pounded the Gaza Strip Wednesday night and Thursday, killing at least 34 Palestinians, including 10 people waiting for care outside a medical clinic, according to local hospitals and aid workers. The Israeli military also announced a soldier was killed in Gaza.
The fighting in Gaza has shown no sign of slowing as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with President Donald Trump in Washington this week to work on a U.S.-led ceasefire plan. Hopes for an agreement in the near term appeared to be fading as Netanyahu prepared to return to Israel.
Netanyahu is holding firm to the idea that Hamas must be destroyed, while Hamas wants a complete end to the war following the proposed 60-day truce.
Gaza’s Nasser Hospital reported a total of 21 deaths in airstrikes in the southern town of Khan Younis and the nearby coastal area of Muwasi. It said three children and their mother, as well as two additional women, were among the dead.
In central Gaza, at least 13 people were killed in the city of Deir al-Balah, including at least 10 people waiting to receive nutritional supplements at a medical clinic early Thursday, according to Project Hope, an aid group that runs the clinic. Two women and five children were among the dead.
“This is just a tragedy, it is a violation of the humanitarian laws. No child waiting for food and medicine should face the risk of being bombed,” said Dr Mithqal Abutaha, the group’s project manager, who was at another clinic at the time.
“It was a horrific scene,” he added. “People had to come seeking health and support, instead they faced death.”
He said the clinic, a humanitarian facility well known to all parties, was mildly damaged and will be closed for several days.
The Israeli military said it struck near the medical center when it was targeting a militant who had infiltrated into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. It said it was investigating.
Additionally, the military said Israeli troops have been working in Khan Younis to dismantle more than 130 Hamas infrastructure sites over the past week, including a 500-meter (yard) tunnel, missile launch sites, and weapons storage facilities.
Over the past 24 hours, massive explosions in Gaza sent plumes of smoke up the sky and were visible from the border with Israel.
On Thursday, the Israeli military announced that a soldier was killed in Khan Younis a day earlier after militants burst out of an underground tunnel and tried to abduct him. The soldier was shot and killed, while troops in the area shot the militants, hitting several of them, the military said.
Eighteen soldiers have been killed in the past three weeks, one of the deadliest periods for the Israeli army in months, putting additional public pressure on Netanyahu to end the war.
An Israeli man in his 20s was killed during an attack at an Israeli supermarket in a settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Thursday afternoon, according to Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency rescue services.
Magen David Adom said two people attacked Israeli shoppers with knives, before security guards on site shot them.
