Israeli strikes kill 23 Palestinians in Gaza
GAZA CITY: Israeli military strikes killed at least 23 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, including a senior rescue service official and a journalist, local health authorities said.
The latest deaths in the Israeli campaign resulted from separate Israeli strikes in Khan Yunis in the south, Jabalia in the north and Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip, medics said.
In Jabalia, they said local journalist Hassan Majdi Abu Warda and several family members were killed by an air strike that hit his house earlier on Sunday.
Another air strike in Nuseirat killed Ashraf Abu Nar, a senior official in the territory's civil emergency service, and his wife in their house, medics added.
The Gaza government media office said that Abu Warda's death raised the number of Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza since October 2023 to 220.
Israel's military said in a statement that Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir visited troops in Khan Yunis on Sunday, telling them that "this is not an endless war."
The statement did not address Sunday's strikes.
In a separate statement, the Gaza media office said Israeli forces were in control of 77 per cent of the Gaza Strip, either through ground forces or evacuation orders and bombardments that keep residents away from their homes.
Meanwhile, the international community should look to sanction Israel to stop the war in Gaza, Spain's foreign minister said, as European and Arab nations gathered in Madrid on Sunday to urge a halt to its offensive.
Some of Israel's longstanding allies have added their voices to growing international pressure after it expanded military operations against Hamas.
A two-month aid blockade has worsened shortages of food, water, fuel and medicine in the Palestinian territory, stoking fears of famine.
Aid organisations say the trickle of supplies Israel has recently allowed to enter falls far short of needs.
The talks in Madrid aim to stop Israel's "inhumane" and "senseless" war in Gaza, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares told reporters before the gathering opened.
Humanitarian aid must enter Gaza "massively, without conditions and without limits, and not controlled by Israel", he added, describing the Strip as humanity's "open wound".
"Silence in these moments is complicity in this massacre... that is why we are meeting," said Albares.
Representatives from European countries including France, Britain, Germany and Italy are joining envoys from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, Morocco, the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
Norway, Iceland, Ireland and Slovenia, who like Spain have already recognised a Palestinian state, are also taking part alongside Brazil.
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