ISRAELI strikes across Gaza killed scores overnight and battles raged Sunday in the besieged territory’s south as Hamas was reviewing a proposal for a halt in the nearly four-month-long war.
French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne was in Egypt and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expected in the region in the coming days to push for a ceasefire and hostage release.
The health ministry in Gaza said at least 127 people were killed in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours in the Gaza Strip, more than 90 of them overnight.
The Hamas government media office said a kindergarten where families were sheltering was hit in the southern border city of Rafah, which is teeming with Palestinians displaced by the war.
“There is no safe place in the Gaza Strip, from north to south,” displaced man Mohammed Kloub told AFP in Rafah, which according to UN figures now hosts more than half of Gaza’s population.
Israel has warned its ground forces could advance on Rafah as part of its campaign to eliminate Hamas militants.
An AFP journalist reported strikes and tank fire on Khan Yunis, southern Gaza’s main city, with some air raids also hitting nearby Rafah.
The army said Sunday its troops raided “a compound used by the commander of Hamas’s Khan Yunis brigade” and seized weapons, also confirming air and naval strikes on the city.
It reported several militants had been killed after attempting to attack Israeli troops.
With the war set to enter a fifth month on Wednesday, international mediators were pressing to seal a proposed truce deal thrashed out in a Paris meeting of top US, Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari officials.
