Hospitals in Gaza say Israeli strikes overnight and into Wednesday killed at least 45 people, including several women and a week-old infant, as Hamas terrorists refuse to release the last remaining hostages, using them and innocents as human shields as they cling to their last remnants of power in the war-torn strip.
The fresh strikes come as Israel's war on Hamas shows no signs of relenting, despite a surge in international anger at Israel's widening offensive.
Israel began allowing dozens of humanitarian trucks into Gaza on Tuesday, but the aid has not yet reached Palestinians in desperate need, according to aid groups. U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said Tuesday evening that although the aid has entered Gaza, aid workers were not able to bring it to distribution points where it is most needed, after the Israeli military forced them to reload the supplies onto separate trucks and workers ran out of time.
Yet Hamas terrorists still refuse to come out of hiding or releasing the hostages to end the standoff and get the people of Gaza the food and aid they are longing for.
Israel says it is prepared to stop the war once all the hostages taken by Hamas return home and Hamas is defeated, or is exiled and disarmed. Hamas says it is prepared to release the hostages in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from the territory and an end to the war. It rejects demands for exile and disarmament.
Internal notes circulated among aid groups Wednesday and seen by The Associated Press said no humanitarian trucks had left Kerem Shalom, the border crossing in southern Gaza that is operated by Israel. The notes said 65 trucks moved from the Israel side of the crossing to the Palestinian side, but hadn't made it into Gaza.
The Israeli defense body that oversees humanitarian aid to Gaza said trucks were entering into Gaza on Wednesday morning, but it was unclear if that aid was able to continue into Gaza for distribution. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said they waited several hours to collect aid from the border crossing in order to begin distribution but were unable to do so on Tuesday.
The U.K. suspended free trade talks Tuesday with Israel over its intensifying assault, a step that came a day after the U.K., Canada and France promised concrete steps to prompt Israel to halt the war. Separately, European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc was reviewing an EU pact governing trade ties with Israel over its conduct of the war in Gaza.
Israel called back its senior negotiating team from ceasefire talks in the Qatari capital of Doha on Tuesday, saying it would leave lower-level officials in place instead.
Meanwhile, Israeli strikes continued to pound Gaza. In the southern city of Khan Younis, where Israel recently ordered new evacuations pending an expected expanded offensive, 24 people were killed, 14 of them from the same family. A week-old infant was killed in central Gaza.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strikes but has said it is targeting Hamas infrastructure and accused Hamas militants of operating from civilian areas.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 others. The terrorists are still holding 58 captives, around a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel's retaliatory offensive, which has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000, according to Gaza's Hamas terrorist-run Health Ministry.
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