Mourners pray over the bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli air strikes at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Sunday, May 19, 2024.
Abdul Karim Khana/Associated Press
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Abdul Karim Khana/Associated Press
Mourners pray over the bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli air strikes at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Sunday, May 19, 2024.
Abdul Karim Khana/Associated Press
DEIR BALAH, Gaza Strip – An Israeli airstrike killed 20 people, mostly women and children, in central Gaza and fighting raged in the north on Sunday as Israeli leaders debated who should govern Gaza after the war. There are differences between the two countries, and the war has entered its eighth month.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces criticism from his own wartime cabinet, with his main political rival Benny Gantz threatening to impose a new war on Gaza if a deal is not drawn up by June 8 that includes the establishment of a post-war Gaza international The government’s plan is that he will leave the government.
U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan is expected to meet with Israel’s top leaders on Sunday to discuss an ambitious U.S. plan for Saudi Arabia to recognize Israel and help the Palestinian Authority govern Gaza in exchange for an eventual path to statehood.
Netanyahu, who opposes Palestinian statehood, has rejected the proposals, saying Israel would maintain open security control of Gaza and work with local Palestinians not affiliated with Hamas or the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.
Gantz’s withdrawal would not topple Netanyahu’s coalition government, but would make him more reliant on far-right allies who support “voluntary immigration” of Palestinians from Gaza, a full military occupation and the rebuilding of Jewish settlements there.
Although discussions about postwar planning have taken on new weight, the war continues to rage with no end in sight. In recent weeks, Hamas has regrouped in parts of northern Gaza that were heavily bombed early in the war and where Israeli ground forces were already operating.
The airstrike in Nuserat, a Palestinian refugee camp in central Gaza that dates back to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, killed 20 people, including eight women and four, according to records from the nearby town of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. children.
Another attack on the streets of Nuseirat killed five more people, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent emergency service. In Deir al-Balah, a senior Hamas-run police official, Zaheed al-Houli, and another man were killed in an attack, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
Palestinians have reported more airstrikes and heavy fighting in northern Gaza, which has been largely isolated by Israeli forces for months and where the World Food Program says famine is raging.
Civil protection authorities said the attack hit several houses near Kamal Adwan Hospital in the town of Beit Lahiya, killing at least 10 people. Video released by rescuers showed explosions in the background and smoke rising as they tried to pull a woman’s body from the rubble.
In the nearby city of Jabulia refugee camp, residents reported heavy shelling and airstrikes.
“The situation is very difficult,” said Abdel-Kareem Radwan, 48, of Jabaliya. He said the entire eastern region had become a war zone where Israeli fighter jets “attack anything that moves.”
Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Bashar said rescue workers had found at least 150 bodies since Israel launched the operation in Jabaliya last week, more than half of them women and children. About 300 houses have been “completely destroyed,” he said.
Following the Hamas attack on October 7, Israel launched an offensive in which Palestinian militants stormed into southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250 people.
The war has killed at least 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Approximately 80 per cent of the 2.3 million Palestinians are displaced within the territory, often multiple times.
Israel says it seeks to avoid harming civilians and blames the high death toll and destruction on Hamas, which has deployed fighter jets, tunnels and rocket launchers in densely populated residential areas.
Netanyahu’s critics, including thousands of protesters who took to the streets again on Saturday, accuse him of prolonging the war and rejecting a ceasefire to release hostages so he could avoid a reckoning for security failures that led to the attack.
Opinion polls suggest Gantz, a political centrist, could succeed Netanyahu in the event of early elections. This would allow Netanyahu to be prosecuted on long-standing corruption charges.
Netanyahu has denied any political motivation and said the offensive must continue until Hamas is disbanded and the bodies of about 100 hostages and more than 30 others held in Gaza are returned. He said there was no point in discussing post-war arrangements while Hamas was still fighting because the militants already threatened anyone who cooperated with Israel.
Netanyahu is also facing pressure from Israel’s closest ally, the United States, which has provided critical military aid and diplomatic cover for the attack while expressing growing dismay at Israel’s warring conduct.
President Joe Biden’s administration recently withheld a shipment of 3,500 bombs, each weighing 2,000 pounds (900 kilograms), and said the United States would not provide offensive weapons for a full-scale invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, citing humanitarian concerns ism conflict.
But last week, after Israel launched what it called a limited operation in Rafah, the administration told lawmakers it would continue selling $1 billion worth of weapons, tank ammunition, tactical vehicles and mortar shells, according to congressional aides.
Sullivan is expected to travel to Israel on Saturday after meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The U.S. government has been developing an ambitious plan in which Saudi Arabia would recognize Israel and join other Arab countries in helping manage and rebuild Gaza in exchange for a U.S. defense deal and help establishing a civilian nuclear program.
But U.S. and Saudi officials say the deal requires Israel to agree to a credible path toward eventual Palestinian statehood, a possibility that Netanyahu has repeatedly ruled out.
In Gantz’s ultimatum, he expressed support for normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. But he also said, “We will not allow any external force, friendly or hostile, to impose a Palestinian state on us.”
