Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 61 Palestinians in a day as UN pursues vaccinations

Israeli military strikes across the Palestinian Gaza Strip killed at least 61 people in the space of 48 hours, local medics said on Saturday.

Eleven months into the war, numerous rounds of diplomacy have so far failed to clinch a ceasefire deal to end the conflict and bring the release of Israeli and foreign hostages held in Gaza as well as many Palestinians jailed in Israel.

An Israeli airstrike in on the Halima Al Sa'diyya school compound serving as a shelter for displaced people in the Jabalia urban refugee camp killed at least eight people and wounded 15 others, medics said. Five more people were killed in a strike on a house in Gaza City.

Later on Saturday, an Israeli strike killed four people and wounded 25 others at Amr Ibn Ala'as school, which also houses displaced families in the Sheikh Radwan suburb of Gaza City, Palestinian medics said.

Palestinian health officials said Israeli military strikes had killed so far 28 people across the Gaza Strip on Saturday.

PAUSES IN FIGHTING LET POLIO VACCINATIONS CONTINUE

On Saturday, senior Hamas official Hossam Badran said the group had made no new demands and remained committed to a July 2 proposal put forward by the United States, accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of attaching new conditions that would not end the war.

Netanyahu says it was Hamas that introduced unacceptable conditions.

Despite the deadlock, the United Nations, in collaboration with local health authorities, has pursued a campaign to vaccinate 640,000 children in Gaza after its first polio case in around 25 years. Limited pauses in the fighting have allowed the campaign to proceed.

UN officials said they were making progress, having reached over half of the children needing the drops in the first two stages in the southern and central Gaza Strip.

On Sunday, the campaign will move to the northern Gaza Strip. A second round of vaccination will be required four weeks after the first.

Reuters