Israeli forces kill scores in Gaza as ceasefire talks set to resume | Israel-Palestine Conflicts News

At least 35 Palestinians have been killed in multiple Israeli attacks in Gaza since morning, as top negotiators prepare to resume ceasefire talks.

Israeli forces killed at least 19 people in the central Gaza Strip on Friday, medical sources told Al Jazeera.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said Friday would be “another day of bloodshed”, following a 24-hour period in which at least 71 Palestinians were killed in 34 Israeli airstrikes, according to the Gaza Government Press Office.

Abu Azzoum said the gunfire in Deir el-Balah suggested a “military advance by Israeli forces” in response to a Hamas attack on an Israeli tank in the area.

Israeli warplanes destroyed buildings in the center of the Strip, killing journalist Omar al-Diraoui in his home in az-Zawayda – the second journalist to be killed in 24 hours.

On Thursday, it was confirmed that the photographer Hassan al-Qishaoui was killed during an Israeli attack.

After the death of these, the Government Information Office of Gaza updated the number of journalists killed in the area since the beginning of the war of almost 15 months to 202.

Meanwhile, Israel continued its renewed military offensive in northern Gaza, with Abu Azzoum reporting that Israeli forces ordered the immediate evacuation of the Indonesian hospital in Beit Lahiya.

Israelis woke up again early on Friday morning, when the army intercepted a missile reportedly fired from Yemen, which took away airstrikes from Jerusalem and central Israel.

Ceasefire talks will resume

As the offensive continued, ceasefire talks were expected to resume on Friday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said it had authorized a team from the Mossad intelligence agency, the Shin Bet internal security service and the military to continue talks in Qatar.

Sami al-Arian, director of the Center for Islam and Global Affairs at Istanbul Zaim University, said that Hamas would agree to postpone one of its key demands – the immediate withdrawal of all Israeli troops from Gaza.

“There has been a lot of pressure from the mediators – especially the Qataris and the Egyptians – to be flexible on these terms,” ​​he told Al Jazeera.

“They have confirmed the opposition, Hamas and other groups, that eventually Israel will withdraw,” he said.

But Ori Goldberg, a political analyst based in Tel Aviv, told Al Jazeera that he saw no reason to agree to end the talks, despite the lack of significant international pressure applied by both sides.

“As far as I know, Hamas is interested in the deal but not too much, because their rental rates are increasing as Israel continues the genocide in Gaza,” he said.

“Of course, the Israeli public is interested in the agreement. [But] the Israeli government? Not so much – the war serves its own interests,” he said.

Key negotiators Qatar, Egypt and the United States have been trying to find a lasting deal through indirect talks for months.

The figure from the first three days of 2025 takes the death toll in Gaza to nearly 46,000 since Israel began its war on the territory on October 7, 2023, following an offensive led by Hamas.

The war has caused worldwide destruction and displaced 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, many of them multiple times.

Hamas-led forces killed about 1,200 people in Israel in an attack on October 7, 2023 and captured nearly 250.

There are about 100 hostages in Gaza, although at least a third of them are believed to be dead.