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An overnight Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City killed 23 people, as Arab mediators worked on a proposal to end the war with Hamas that would include a five-to-seven-year truce and the release of all remaining hostages, officials said Wednesday.
There was no immediate Israeli comment on the strike, which set several tents ablaze, burning people alive. The military says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because its fighters are embedded in densely populated areas. Another six people were killed in separate strikes, including 5-year-old twin girls.
France, Germany and Britain meanwhile said Israel’s seven-week blockade on all imports to Gaza, including food, was “intolerable,” in unusually strong criticism from three of the country’s closest allies.
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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on Hamas to release the hostages in order to “block Israel’s pretexts” for continuing the war. He reiterated his demands that Hamas give up their arms, referring to them as “sons of dogs” in unusually strong language during a speech in the West Bank.
Abbas, who heads the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, has no influence over Hamas but seeks a role in postwar Gaza. Basem Naim, a senior Hamas official, said anyone making such insults has “lost their physical, psychological and mental eligibility for these leadership positions.”
Egypt and Qatar are still developing the proposal, which would include the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the release of Palestinian prisoners, according to an Egyptian official and a Hamas official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
Israel ended a ceasefire with Hamas last month and has vowed to continue the war until all the hostages are returned and Hamas is destroyed or disarmed and sent into exile. It says it will hold parts of Gaza indefinitely and implement President Donald Trump’s proposal for the resettlement of the population in other countries, which has been widely rejected internationally.
