
Nine killed in Israeli Gaza strikes
People mourns the death of one of the victims of Israeli bombardment in Beit Lahia, Gaza Strip. Photo: AFP
Gaza's civil defence agency said nine people, including journalists, were killed in Israeli strikes on Saturday, attacks which could further endanger the fragile truce in the Palestinian territory.
Following the reported strikes, the deadliest since the ceasefire took hold on January 19, Hamas accused Israel of a "blatant violation" of the truce which largely halted more than 15 months of fighting.
The first phase of the truce ended on March 1 without agreement on the next steps, but both Israel and Hamas have refrained from returning to all-out war.
A senior Hamas official said on Tuesday fresh talks had begun in Doha, with Israel also sending negotiators.
On Saturday, Gaza civil defence spokesman Mahmoud Bassal told AFP that "nine martyrs have been transferred (to hospital), including several journalists and a number of workers from the Al-Khair Charitable Organisation".
He said the killings were "as a result of the occupation (Israel) targeting a vehicle with a drone in the town of Beit Lahia, coinciding with artillery shelling on the same area".
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said "nine martyrs and several injured, including critical cases" were taken to the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza.
In a statement, the Israeli military said it hit "two terrorists... operating a drone that posed a threat to IDF troops in the area of Beit Lahia".
"Later, a number of additional terrorists collected the drone operating equipment and entered a vehicle. The IDF struck the terrorists," it added.
Israel has carried out near-daily air strikes in Gaza since early March, often targeting what the military said were militants planting explosive devices.
"The occupation has committed a horrific massacre in the northern Gaza Strip by targeting a group of journalists and humanitarian workers, in a blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement," Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said in a statement.
A separate Hamas statement said the attack was "a dangerous escalation", adding that it "reaffirms (Israel's) intent to backtrack on the ceasefire agreement and intentionally obstruct any opportunity to complete the agreement and carry out the prisoner swap".
During the truce's initial six-week phase, militants released 33 hostages, including eight who were deceased, in exchange for about 1,800 Palestinian detainees held in Israeli prisons.
Hamas said Saturday that "the ball is in Israel's court" after offering to release an Israeli-US hostage and return the bodies of four others as part of the truce talks.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Business Recorder
3 hours ago
- Business Recorder
US slams UN conference on Israel-Palestinian issue, warns of consequences
PARIS: U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is discouraging governments around the world from attending a U.N. conference next week on a possible two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, according to a U.S. cable seen by Reuters. The diplomatic demarche, sent on Tuesday, says countries that take 'anti-Israel actions' following the conference will be viewed as acting in opposition to U.S. foreign policy interests and could face diplomatic consequences from Washington. The demarche, which was not previously reported, runs squarely against the diplomacy of two close allies France and Saudi Arabia, who are co-hosting the gathering next week in New York that aims to lay out the parameters for a roadmap to a Palestinian state, while ensuring Israel's security. 'We are urging governments not to participate in the conference, which we view as counterproductive to ongoing, life-saving efforts to end the war in Gaza and free hostages,' read the cable. President Emmanuel Macron has suggested France could recognise a Palestinian state in Israeli-occupied territories at the conference. French officials say they have been working to avoid a clash with the U.S., Israel's staunchest major ally. UN conference on two-state solution to Mideast conflict set for June 'The United States opposes any steps that would unilaterally recognise a conjectural Palestinian state, which adds significant legal and political obstacles to the eventual resolution of the conflict and could coerce Israel during a war, thereby supporting its enemies,' the cable read. The United States for decades backed a two-state solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians that would create a state for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza alongside Israel. Trump, in his first term, was relatively tepid in his approach to a two-state solution, a longtime pillar of U.S. Middle East policy. The Republican president has given little sign of where he stands on the issue in his second term. But on Tuesday, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, a long-time vocal supporter of Israel, said he did not think an independent Palestinian state remained a U.S. foreign policy goal. Gaza war 'Unilaterally recognizing a Palestinian state would effectively render Oct. 7 Palestinian Independence Day,' the cable read, referring to when Palestinian Hamas carried out a cross-border attack from Gaza on Israel in 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages. Hamas' attack triggered Israel's air and ground war in Gaza in which almost 55,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of the 2.3 million population displaced and the enclave widely reduced to rubble. If Macron went ahead, France, home to Europe's largest Jewish and Muslim communities, would become the first Western heavyweight to recognise a Palestinian state. This could lend greater momentum to a movement hitherto dominated by smaller nations generally more critical of Israel. Macron's stance has shifted amid Israel's intensified Gaza offensive and escalating violence against Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, and there is a growing sense of urgency in Paris to act now before the idea of a two-state solution vanishes forever. The U.S. cable said Washington had worked tirelessly with Egypt and Qatar to reach a ceasefire in Gaza, free the hostages and end the conflict. 'This conference undermines these delicate negotiations and emboldens Hamas at a time when the terrorist group has rejected proposals by the negotiators that Israel has accepted.' This week Britain and Canada, also G7 allies of the United States, were joined by other countries in placing sanctions on two Israeli far-right government ministers to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to bring the Gaza war to an end. 'The United States opposes the implied support of the conference for potential actions including boycotts and sanctions on Israel as well as other punitive measures,' the cable read. Israel has repeatedly criticised the conference, saying it rewards Hamas for the attack on Israel, and it has lobbied France against recognising a Palestinian state. 'Nothing surprises me anymore, but I don't see how many countries could step back on their participation,' said a European diplomat, who asked for anonymity due to the subject's sensitivity. 'This is bullying, and of a stupid type.' The U.S. State Department and the French Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.


Business Recorder
4 hours ago
- Business Recorder
Israeli strike kills one in Lebanon's south: ministry
BEIRUT: One person was killed on Wednesday in an Israeli strike on a village in southern Lebanon, the health ministry reported, the latest deadly attack despite a November ceasefire. 'The raid carried out by an enemy Israeli drone on the town of Beit Lif, in the Bint Jbeil district, resulted in one martyr and three people injured,' read a statement from the ministry. The official National News Agency said the strike targeted a house's courtyard in the town, adding that a missile hit the homeowner's car. Israeli gunfire, airstrikes kill 60 in Gaza, many near aid site, medics say Israel has regularly bombed its northern neighbour since the November ceasefire that sought to end more than a year of hostilities with group Hezbollah including two months of full-blown war. The agreement required Hezbollah fighters to withdraw north of the Litani river, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the Israeli border, and dismantle all military infrastructure to its south. It also required Israel to withdraw all of its troops from Lebanon, but it has kept them in five positions it deems 'strategic'.


Business Recorder
10 hours ago
- Business Recorder
Trump says he's less confident about nuclear deal with Iran
WASHINGTON: U.S. President Donald Trump said he was less confident that Iran will agree to stop uranium enrichment in a nuclear deal with Washington, according to an interview released on Wednesday. 'I don't know,' Trump told the 'Pod Force One' podcast on Monday when asked if he thought he could get Iran to agree to shut down its nuclear program. 'I don't know. I did think so, and I'm getting more and more — less confident about it.' Trump has been seeking a new nuclear deal to place limits on Iran's disputed uranium enrichment activities and has threatened the Islamic Republic with bombing if no agreement is reached. He told reporters at the White House on Monday that he had discussed Iran with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday and said talks with Iranians were 'tough.' In the podcast interview, Trump said the Iranians seem to be using delaying tactics. 'I'm less confident now than I would have been a couple of months ago. Something happened to them, but I am much less confident of a deal being made,' he said. Trump repeated that Washington would not allow Tehran to develop nuclear bombs - by enriching uranium to high levels of fissile purity - whether or not a deal is reached. Iran says new round of US talks planned for Sunday 'But it would be nicer to do it without warfare, without people dying, it's so much nicer to do it. But I don't think I see the same level of enthusiasm for them to make a deal.' Iran has long said it has no plans to develop nuclear weapon and is only interested in atomic power generation and other peaceful projects. Russia said on Wednesday it stood ready to remove highly enriched uranium from Iran and convert it into civilian reactor fuel as a potential way to narrow U.S.-Iranian differences. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who oversees arms control and U.S. relations, told Russian media that efforts to reach a solution should be redoubled and that Moscow was willing to help in practical ways. 'We are ready to provide assistance to both Washington and Tehran, not only politically, not only in the form of ideas that could be of use in the negotiation process, but also practically: for example, through the export of excess nuclear material produced by Iran and its subsequent adaptation to the production of fuel for reactors,' Ryabkov said. He did not make clear whether the nuclear fuel would then be returned to Iran for use in its civil nuclear energy programme, which Moscow has helped develop. During his first White House term, Trump withdrew the U.S. from a 2015 deal between Iran and world powers that placed limits on Tehran's uranium enrichment drive in exchange for relief from international sanctions.