Israeli air strikes kill 31 in Gaza despite truce talks resuming

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Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defence agency says at least 31 people were killed in Israeli air strikes on the Palestinian enclave on Saturday.

The strikes came despite the Israeli government confirming it had resumed negotiations with Hamas over a potential truce between the two sides, which have been engaged in combat since Hamas’s October 7 attack in 2023.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said a dawn air strike on a family home in Gaza City killed 11 people, seven of them children.

Images from Gaza City showed residents combing through smoking rubble. 

Bodies including those of small children were lined up on the ground, shrouded in white sheets.

Elsewhere, the civil defence agency said an Israeli strike killed five security officers tasked with accompanying aid convoys as they drove through the southern city of Khan Yunis.

Mr Bassal accused Israel of having “deliberately targeted” them to “affect the humanitarian supply chain and increase the suffering” of the population.

Israel’s military has not yet responded to the accusation.

Rescuers said strikes elsewhere in Gaza killed 10 other people.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said a total of 136 people had been killed over the previous 48 hours.

Gaza’s civil defence agency says an Israeli strike hit a family home in Gaza City. (Reuters: Rami Ali)

Truce talks resume

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said indirect negotiations with Hamas had resumed in Qatar for the release of hostages seized on October 7.

Mr Katz told relatives of one of the hostages, female soldier Liri Albag, that “efforts are underway to free the hostages, notably the Israeli delegation which left yesterday [Friday] for negotiations in  Qatar”, his office said.

Hamas took at least 250 Israelis hostage, of whom a total of 96 remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

A protest sign saying '100 abandoned hostages, save them now', at a protest in Tel Aviv.

Protesters in Tel Aviv critical of the government are urging more to be done to see Israeli hostages returned. (Reuters: Kai Pfaffenbach)

Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 45,000 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Gaza health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.

Both Israel and Hamas have publicly said they were willing to restart negotiations in the past week.

On Saturday, the outgoing administration of President Joe Biden notified Congress of an $US8 billion ($13 billion) arms sale to Israel, a source familiar with the plan told news agency AFP on Saturday.

“The department has informally notified Congress of an $8 billion proposed sale of munitions to support Israel’s long-term security by resupplying stocks of critical munitions and air defence capabilities,” the official said.

The United States is Israel’s largest military supplier.

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