TRUCE STICKING POINTS. Palestinians walk at a UN-school housing displacing people hit during Israeli bombardment in Nuseirat, in the central Gaza Strip, on Thursday, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas militant group. The Israeli military said its fighter jets struck a UN-run school used by Palestinian militants in central Gaza, with authorities in the Hamas-run territory reporting at least 37 dead.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah, near Nuseirat, said it had received the bodies of at least “37 martyrs” from the strike, updating an initial death toll of 27 provided by the Hamas government media office which condemned it as a “horrific massacre… that shames humanity”. The war was sparked by Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.Israel’s ensuing bombardment and ground offensive have killed at least 36,586 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
A source with knowledge of the negotiations confirmed to AFP that a meeting took place on Wednesday “between the Qatari prime minister and head of Egyptian intelligence with Hamas in the Qatari capital Doha to discuss a deal for a truce in Gaza and the exchange of hostages and prisoners”. Muhammad al-Najjar, a 35-year-old man from northern Gaza twice displaced by the war, told AFP he was “exhausted” by the war, which has “destroyed us and destroyed everything in our lives”.Gaza’s bloodiest ever war has sent regional tensions soaring, with violence on the rise involving Israel and its allies on the one hand, and Iran-backed armed groups on the other.