Gaza: At least 17 Palestinians, including women and children, were killed and dozens more wounded in an Israeli strike on the town of Zawayda in central Gaza on Saturday, according to health officials. The strike comes as Israel issues fresh evacuation orders, citing Hamas rocket fire in the area.
Meanwhile, Israeli authorities revealed the identities of two soldiers killed on Saturday afternoon. One soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in the central Gaza Strip, while another died during an airstrike in the occupied West Bank. Israel claims the airstrike targeted two senior Hamas militants allegedly involved in the killing of an Israeli.
This escalation precedes the anticipated arrival of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Israel on Sunday. Blinken is expected to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday to further diplomatic efforts aimed at brokering a deal to end the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas and secure the release of Israeli hostages.
Among the victims in Zawayda were eight children and four women from the same family, according to officials in Gaza’s Hamas-administered health ministry. “They were asleep in their beds, kids and babies, then three missiles targeted their place,” said Abu Ahmed Hassan, a neighbor. He noted that the owner of the house was a well-known merchant, adding, “There are no military activities here at all.”
In response, the Israeli military confirmed targeting militant positions in the area, stating that rockets had been fired at Israeli forces. The military also announced that the incident was under review.
On Saturday, Israel’s military spokesperson posted Arabic-language instructions on X, advising residents of central Gaza, including those near Zawayda in the Maghazi district, to evacuate to a designated humanitarian zone. However, Reuters could not immediately confirm whether the area was among those ordered to evacuate or if residents had received the military’s instructions. Thousands of people were reported to be fleeing the Maghazi district.
On Friday, Israel declared parts of Khan Younis in southern Gaza—within areas designated as humanitarian zones—unsafe, ordering evacuations due to ongoing rocket fire from militants. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that Friday’s evacuation orders, which included areas outside the humanitarian zones, impacted roughly 170,000 displaced people.
“This is one of the largest evacuation orders affecting the zone to date, shrinking the so-called ‘humanitarian area’ to about 41 square kilometers, or 11 percent of the total area of the Gaza Strip,” OCHA said in a report.
In the central Gaza Strip, Israeli tanks continued their advance on Saturday, pushing further into Deir al-Balah, an area previously unentered by Israeli forces, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are seeking refuge. The Israeli military said its forces had killed dozens of militants since Friday, some of whom had launched rockets from central and southern Gaza.
Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has been devastated by a 10-month-long Israeli military campaign, which has displaced the majority of its residents and caused widespread destruction.
Another Israeli airstrike on Saturday targeted a car in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, killing two Palestinians, including an 18-year-old, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
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Ceasefire Negotiations
Diplomatic efforts to reach a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, mediated by the U.S., Qatar, and Egypt, are expected to resume next week in Doha.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office expressed “cautious optimism” about the possibility of advancing a ceasefire deal, which is reportedly based on an updated U.S. proposal following the May 27th framework. The proposal includes conditions that Israel finds acceptable.
U.S. President Joe Biden, following two days of talks in Doha, expressed hope for a breakthrough in the negotiations, stating that a deal was “in sight” but cautioning that the talks were “far from over.”
However, Hamas spokesman Jihad Taha told Al Jazeera on Saturday that Israel had introduced new conditions to the ceasefire negotiations, accusing Netanyahu of using these demands to obstruct progress.
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Another Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, reiterated that Israel seeks the right to resume hostilities even if a prisoner exchange agreement is reached. “They want to have the right to attack Gaza whenever they want,” Hamdan told Al Jazeera.
The conflict began on October 7 when Hamas launched an attack on Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 hostages, according to Israeli reports.
Since then, Israel’s retaliatory military operations have killed over 40,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom are civilians, according to health authorities in Gaza. Israel reports that at least 330 of its soldiers have been killed during the ground campaign in Gaza, while it estimates that a third of the Palestinian casualties are militants.
