Israeli air strikes kill 33 in Gaza

US security adviser says Netanyahu appears ready to negotiate a deal

GAZA STRIP/TEL AVIV:

Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli air strikes on Thursday killed at least 33 people, including 12 guards securing aid trucks.

The latest bloodshed came after the UN General Assembly called for an immediate ceasefire in the devastated territory, where war has raged since October 2023.

Seven guards were killed in a strike in Rafah, in southern Gaza, while another attack left five guards dead in nearby Khan Yunis, agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.

"The (Israeli) occupation once again targeted those securing the aid trucks," Bassal told AFP.

Bassal added that around 30 people, most of them children, were wounded in the two strikes.

"The trucks carrying flour were on their way to UNRWA warehouses," Bassal noted, referring to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.

"The occupation aims to destroy all services for citizens across the Gaza Strip," the spokesman said.

Witnesses later told AFP that residents looted flour from the trucks after the strikes.

The United Nations and other aid agencies have repeatedly warned about the acute humanitarian crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip, exacerbated by the war that has persisted for more than 14 months. "Conditions for people across the Gaza Strip are appalling and apocalyptic," UNRWA spokeswoman Louise Wateridge told journalists during a visit to Nuseirat in central Gaza.

She added that life-saving aid to "besieged areas in north Gaza governorate has been largely blocked" since the Israeli military launched a sweeping assault there in early October.

The civil defence agency said Israeli air strikes on two homes near Nuseirat refugee camp and Gaza City killed 21 people including children.

Fifteen people, at least six of them children, died "as a result of an Israeli bombing" of a building sheltering displaced people near Nuseirat, Bassal said.

The bodies of six others killed in a strike on an apartment in Gaza City were taken to a hospital morgue, he added.

In Khan Yunis, relatives gathered at the Nasser Hospital to mourn the dead and perform funeral rites.

Meanwhile, visiting US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared prepared to negotiate a deal for the release of hostages held in Gaza and a ceasefire.

"We're now looking to close a hostage release deal and a ceasefire (in Gaza). It's time to finish the job and bring all of the hostages home... I got the sense from the prime minister he's ready to do a deal," Sullivan said at a press conference at the Tel Aviv annex of the US embassy in Jerusalem, after meeting Netanyahu.

There has been growing optimism that a new round of talks for a ceasefire and hostage release deal might succeed, with key mediator Qatar talking of new "momentum" last week.

Some of Netanyahu's critics at home and abroad have accused him of stalling in negotiations, while Israel has repeatedly blamed Hamas for delays.

Sullivan said that Hamas's approach to the negotiations had changed, attributing it to the overthrow of their ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria and the ceasefire that went into effect in the war between Israel and another ally, Lebanese group Hezbollah.

Sullivan said he would travel onwards to Qatar and Egypt -- both longtime mediators between Israel and Hamas -- in a bid to secure progress in negotiations.