Israeli strikes across Gaza overnight kill at least 135 people

DEIR AL-BALAH, May 18: Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 135 people overnight and into Sunday, hospitals and medics said, and prompted the main hospital in northern Gaza to close as Israel intensifies its war in the territory that, after more than 19 months, shows no signs of abating.

More than 48 people were killed in airstrikes in and around the southern city of Khan Younis, some of which hit houses and tents sheltering displaced people, according to Nasser Hospital. Among the dead were 18 children and 13 women, hospital spokesperson Weam Fares said.

In northern Gaza, a strike on a home in the built-up Jabaliya refugee camp killed nine people from a single family, according to the Gaza health ministry's emergency services. Another strike on a family's residence, also in Jabaliya, killed 10, including seven children and a woman, according to the civil defense, which operates under the Hamas-run government.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the overnight strikes. Israel blames civilian casualties from its operations on Hamas because the militant group operates from civilian areas.

The bloodshed comes as Israel ramps up its war in Gaza with a new offensive named "Gideon's Chariots," in which Israel says it plans to seize territory, displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to Gaza's south and take greater control over the distribution of aid.

Israel says the new plan is meant to ramp up pressure on the militant Hamas group to agree to a temporary ceasefire on Israel's terms - one that would free Israeli hostages held in Gaza but wouldn't necessarily end the war. Hamas says it wants a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and a pathway to ending the war as part of any new ceasefire deal.

Israel had said it would wait until the end of U.S. President Donald Trump's visit to the region before launching its new offensive, saying it was giving a chance for efforts to bring about a new ceasefire deal. Trump did not visit Israel on his trip, which wrapped up on Friday.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said his negotiating team in the Qatari capital, Doha, was "working to realize every chance for a deal," including one that would bring about an end to the fighting in exchange for the release of all the remaining 58 hostages, Hamas' exile from Gaza and the disarmament of the Palestinian territory.

Hamas has refused to leave Gaza or disarm.

Israel shattered a previous 8-week ceasefire in mid-March, launching fierce airstrike that killed hundreds. Days before the end of that ceasefire, Israel also halted all imports into Gaza, including food, medicine and fuel, deepening a humanitarian crisis and sparking warnings of an increasing risk of famine in the territory - a blockade that continues.

Israel says that move is also meant to pressure Hamas.

The war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 251 others. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't differentiate between civilians and combatants.

In northern Gaza, parts of which have been flattened by Israel's onslaught, at least 43 people were killed in multiple strikes, according to first responders from the health ministry and the civil defense. Gaza City's Shifa Hospital said among the dead, 15 were children and 12 were women.

In Jabaliya, a built-up refugee camp in northern Gaza, 10 people, including seven children and a woman were killed, according to the civil defense, which operates under the Hamas-run government. Among the dead were two parents and their three children and a father and his four children, it said.

Health officials said Sunday that fighting around the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza and an Israeli military "siege" prompted it to shut down.

Meanwhile, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Sunday that all public hospitals in the north of the territory were now "out of service" after Israeli forces besieged the Indonesian hospital. �"AGENCIES