Israeli strike in Gaza kills 25 people as US makes new push for a ceasefire

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — An Israeli airstrike hit the central Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing at least 25 Palestinians and wounding dozens more, Palestinian medics said, just hours after President Joe Biden’s national security adviser raised hopes about a ceasefire deal to end the war in Gaza.

Officials at two hospitals in the Gaza Strip, al-Awda Hospital in the north and al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza, reported they received a combined total of 25 bodies from an Israeli strike on a multistory residential building in the urban Nuseirat refugee camp.

Palestinian medics also reported that over 40 people, most of them children, were receiving treatment at the two hospitals. The al-Aqsa Hospital said that the Israeli attack also damaged several nearby houses in Nuseirat.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the deadly strike. Israel is trying to eliminate Hamas, which led the attack on southern Israel in October 2023 that sparked the war in Gaza. The Israeli military says Hamas militants hide among Gaza’s civilian population.

Photos from the site showed a completely collapsed building with people walking through its mangled and charred remains, smoke rising from piles of belongings strewn over the rubble.

The bombardment came just hours after Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, told reporters in Jerusalem that Israel’s ceasefire in Lebanon has helped clear the way for another deal to end the war in Gaza. He plans to travel next to Qatar and Egypt, key mediators in the ceasefire talks, as the Biden administration makes a final push on negotiations before Donald Trump is inaugurated.

Sullivan said “Hamas’ posture at the negotiating table did adapt” after Israel decimated the leadership of its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon and reached a ceasefire there. “We believe it puts us in a position to close this negotiation,” he said.