Israeli strikes kill at least 17 in Gaza overnight

Palestinian health officials say Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip overnight and into Wednesday killed at least 17 people, including five children and their parents.

The strikes came on the eve of new talks aimed at reaching a cease-fire in the 10-month war. The United States, Qatar and Egypt are hoping to broker an agreement, but the sides remain far apart on several issues after months of indirect negotiations.

A top Hamas official has told the media the group is losing faith in the US as a mediator in the Gaza cease-fire talks. It was not clear late Wednesday if Hamas would attend the talks beginning Thursday.

The overall Palestinian death toll in the war has almost reached 40,000, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

One strike hit a family home late Tuesday in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, which dates back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. It killed five children, ranging in age from 2 to 11, and their parents, according to the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

An Associated Press reporter who saw the bodies said they had been dismembered by the blast and the 2-year-old had been decapitated.

In the nearby Maghazi refugee camp, a strike on a home early Wednesday killed four people, the hospital said. In the southern city of Khan Younis, the Health Ministry’s emergency service said first responders recovered the bodies of four men killed in a strike on a residential tower late Tuesday. Two more people were killed in a strike on a house in the northern town of Beit Lahiya, according to the emergency service.

Associated Press