Israeli onslaught kills 85 in Gaza as Trump visits Gulf
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio attends an interview after meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the Diriyah Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on February 18, 2025. PHOTO: REUTERS
Israeli military strikes killed at least 85 people in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, Palestinian medics said, as the United States and Arab mediators pushed for a ceasefire deal and US President Donald Trump visited the Middle East.
Most of the victims, including women and children, were killed in Khan Younis in southern Gaza in airstrikes that hit homes and tents, they said.
The dead included journalist Hassan Samour, who worked for the Hamas-run Aqsa radio station and was killed along with 11 family members when their home was hit, the medics said.
In Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, the health ministry said an Israeli strike on Al-Tawba medical clinic killed at least 15 people and wounded several others. It took Thursday's death toll to 85, medics said.
Hamas said in a statement that Israel was making a "desperate attempt to negotiate under cover of fire" as indirect ceasefire talks take place, also involving Trump envoys and Qatar and Egyptian mediators in Doha.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said after he spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday that Washington is troubled by the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Rubio, speaking to reporters in Antalya, Turkey, said the US was "not immune or in any way insensitive to the suffering of people in Gaza," where no humanitarian assistance has been delivered since March 2.
It was the first time Rubio has addressed the situation in Gaza since the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation announced it will start work in Gaza by the end of May under a heavily-criticized distribution plan.
Palestinians on Thursday commemorated the "Nakba", or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands fled or were forced to flee their towns and villages during the 1948 war that gave birth to Israel. "What we are experiencing now is even worse than the Nakba of 1948," said Ahmed Hamad, a Palestinian in Gaza City who has been displaced several times. "The truth is, we live in a constant state of violence and displacement. Wherever we go, we face attacks. Death surrounds us everywhere."
Palestinian health officials say the Israeli attacks have escalated since Trump started a visit on Tuesday to the Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which many Palestinians had hoped he would use to push for a truce.
Attacks on Gaza on Wednesday killed at least 80 people, local health officials said. Little has come of the indirect ceasefire talks.
Hamas says it is ready to free all the remaining hostages it is holding in Gaza in return for an end to the war, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prefers interim truces, saying the war can only end once Hamas is eradicated.
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