Israel bombarded houses in overnight attacks in the northern Gaza Strip, including one airstrike that killed at least 15 people in a home sheltering displaced people in Beit Lahiya, Palestinian medics said on Monday.
The three barely operational hospitals in the area were unable to cope with the wounded from the attack, and a number of other people were still missing with rescue workers unable to reach them, the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said.
Residents said clusters of houses were bombed and some set ablaze in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, three towns on the northern edge of Gaza where the Israeli army has been operating for weeks.
They said Israeli drones had also dropped bombs outside a school sheltering displaced families in Beit Lahiya, part of what residents have described as a campaign to scare people into leaving.
New Ceasefire Push
Officials in Cairo have hosted talks between Hamas and the rival Fatah group led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on the possible establishment of a committee to run post-war Gaza.
Egypt has proposed that a committee made up of non-partisan technocrat figures, and supervised by Abbas' Western-backed Palestinian Authority, should be ready to run Gaza straight after the war ends. Israel has said Hamas should have no role in governance.
A Palestinian official close to the mediation effort told Reuters Hamas stood by its condition that any agreement must bring an end to the war and involve an Israeli troop withdrawal, but Hamas would show the flexibility needed to achieve that. Israel has said the war will end only when Hamas no longer governs Gaza and poses no threat to Israelis.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Sunday there was some indication of progress towards a deal to free Israeli hostages, but that Israel's conditions for ending the war had not changed.
Later on Monday, Hamas's armed wing said at least 33 hostages had been killed since the war started, blaming their deaths on Israel's failure to agree to its demands, without disclosing their nationalities. It added that some other hostages had gone missing.
"With the continuation of your crazy war," it said in a statement addressed to Israel, "you could lose your hostages forever. Do what you have to do before it is too late," the group said. The Israeli military did not immediately comment
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