By Crispian Balmer, Nidal al-Mughrabi and Ali Sawafta
JERUSALEM/CAIRO (Reuters) -An Israeli strike hit Palestinians near a medical centre in Gaza on Thursday, killing 16 including children and wounding more people, local health authorities said, as ceasefire talks dragged on with no result expected soon.
The strike in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip came as Israeli and Hamas negotiators hold talks with mediators in Qatar over a proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage release deal aimed at building agreement on a lasting truce.
However, a senior Israeli official said on Wednesday that an agreement was not likely to be secured for another one or two weeks.
Khalil al-Deqran, spokesperson for the health ministry in Gaza’s Hamas-run government, said Israel had targeted a medical centre and that six of the dead were children. Many of those injured had suffered severe wounds to the head and chest, he said.
Israel’s military said it had struck a militant who took part in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war. It said it was aware of reports regarding a number of injured individuals and that the incident was under review.
Videos on Thursday verified by Reuters showed a scene of carnage, with the bodies of dead and injured, mainly women and children, lying in blood amid a cloud of dust as people screamed all around, and of motionless children lying in blood on a donkey cart.
At Deir al-Balah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the dead and wounded were taken, Samah al-Nouri said her daughter had been killed in the morning’s strike after attending the clinic to seek treatment for a throat ailment.
“They hit her with a shell. Her brother went to check and he said they all died. What did they do? What’s their fault? She was only getting treatment in a medical facility. Why did they kill them?” she said.
Israeli attacks on Palestinian hospitals and health facilities, detentions of medics, and restrictions on the entry of medical supplies have drawn condemnation from the United Nations.
The United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA said in May that the U.N. had documented at least 686 attacks impacting healthcare in Gaza since the war began.
Dwindling fuel supplies risk further disruption in the remaining, semi-functioning hospitals, including to incubators at the neonatal unit of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, doctors there said.
“We are forced to place four, five or sometimes three premature babies in one incubator,” said Dr Mohammed Abu Selmia, the hospital director, adding that premature babies were now in a critical condition.
TALKS
U.S. President Donald Trump met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week to discuss Gaza amid reports Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas were nearing agreement on a U.S.-brokered ceasefire proposal after 21 months of war.
The Israeli official who was in Washington with Netanyahu said that if the two sides agree to the ceasefire proposal, Israel would use that time to offer a permanent truce requiring Hamas to disarm.
If Hamas refuses, “we’ll proceed” with military operations in Gaza, the official said on condition of anonymity.
A Palestinian official said the talks in Qatar were in crisis and that issues under dispute, including whether Israel would continue to occupy parts of Gaza after a ceasefire, had yet to be resolved.
The two sides previously agreed a ceasefire in January but it did not lead to a deal on a permanent truce and Israel resumed its military assault in March, stopping all aid supplies into Gaza and telling civilians to leave the north of the tiny territory.
Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has now killed more than 57,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities. It has destroyed swathes of the territory and driven most Gazans from their homes.
The Hamas attack on Israeli border communities that triggered the war killed around 1,200 people and the militant group seized around 250 hostages according to Israeli tallies.
(Reporting by Crispian Balmer in Jerusalem, Ali Sawafta in Ramallah and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo, writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Ros Russell)
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