43 dead in Israeli strikes as truce talks deadlocked

Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli air strikes on Sunday killed more than 40 Palestinians, including at a market and a water distribution point, as talks for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas stalled.

Delegations from Israel and the Palestinian militant group have now spent a week trying to agree on a temporary truce to halt 21 months of devastating fighting in the Gaza Strip.

But on Saturday, each side accused the other of blocking attempts to secure an agreement at the indirect talks in the Qatari capital, Doha.

On the ground, civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said at least 43 people were killed in the latest Israeli strikes, including 11 when a market in Gaza City was hit.

Elsewhere, eight children were among the 10 victims of a drone strike at a water point in the Nuseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza, Bassal said.

Khaled Rayyan told AFP he was woken by the sound of two large explosions after a house was hit in Nuseirat.

"Our neighbour and his children were under the rubble," he said.

Another resident, Mahmud al-Shami, called on the negotiators to secure a deal.

"What happened to us has never happened in the entire history of humanity," he said. "Enough."

Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency and other parties.

Gaza's health ministry says that at least 58,026 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in Israel's campaign. The UN considers those figures reliable. UN agencies on Saturday warned that fuel shortages had reached "critical levels", threatening to worsen conditions for Gaza's more than two million people.

"Only 150,000 litres of fuel have been allowed in over the past few days — an amount that covers less than one day's needs," the head of the Palestinian NGOs Network in Gaza, Amjad Shawa, told AFP on Sunday.

"We require 275,000 litres of fuel per day to meet basic needs."

Talks to seal a 60-day ceasefire and hostage release were in the balance on Saturday after Israel and Hamas accused each other of trying to block a deal.

Hamas wants the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, but a Palestinian source with knowledge of the talks said Israel had presented plans to maintain troops in more than 40 percent of the territory.

The source said Israel wanted to force hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into the south of Gaza "in preparation for forcibly displacing them to Egypt or other countries"