Ceasefire hopes fade as Israel bombards Gaza, Lebanon
CAIRO/BEIRUT — Prospects of a ceasefire between Israel and its foes Hamas and Hezbollah ran aground on Friday as Israeli airstrikes killed at least 68 people in the Gaza Strip, according to medics in the Palestinian enclave, and bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs.
The Israeli military said it killed senior Hamas official Izz al-Din Kassab in an airstrike in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis and described him as one of the last surviving high-ranking members of Hamas responsible for coordinating with other groups in Gaza.
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U.S. envoys had been working to secure ceasefires on both fronts ahead of the U.S. presidential election next Tuesday.
But Hamas does not favour a temporary truce, its Al-Aqsa Hamas television reported on Friday. The ceasefire proposals failed to meet its conditions that any deal must end the year-long war in Gaza and include a withdrawal of Israeli forces from the devastated Palestinian enclave, it said.
Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his priority was to enforce security “despite any pressure or constraints”.
His office said he relayed this message to U.S. envoys Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk in Israel on Thursday. Israel meanwhile pressed on with its military offensives against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon on Friday.
Medics in Gaza said about 68 people were killed and dozens injured overnight and into Friday morning in Israeli strikes on the city of Deir Al-Balah, the Nuseirat camp and the town of Al-Zawayda, all in Gaza’s central area, as well as in its south.
Fourteen people were killed by an Israeli strike at the gate of a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Nuseirat, according to medics at the camp’s Al-Awda Hospital. Another 10 were killed in a car in Khan Younis, medics said.
Hours later, residents said Israeli tanks advanced on the northern and eastern sides of Nuseirat, and medics said an Israeli airstrike killed four people, including three children.
The Israeli military said its troops killed what it called armed terrorists in central Gaza and the northern Jabalia area. It had no immediate comment on the reported school strike, although it habitually denies deliberately attacking civilians.
