Israel launched a new and intense wave of airstrikes and artillery shelling on targets across Gaza on Thursday morning, killing at least 80 people, according to officials in the Palestinian territory.
The raids and bombardment over the last 48 hours have raised levels of violence higher than for several weeks, with the death toll coming close to that during the first days of Israel’s renewed offensive inGazaafter a fragile ceasefire collapsed in March.
Mahmud Bassal, a spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defence agency, said at least 13 people were “recovered from rubble” after a dawn strike in the southern city of Khan Younis, while 35 were killed in 12 separate strikes elsewhere.
Witnesses in Khan Younis reported multiple airstrikes on the city from early morning and saw many bodies being taken to the morgue in the city’s Nasser hospital. Some bodies arrived in pieces, and some body bags contained the remains of multiple people, they said. The hospital’s morgue said 54 people had been killed.
The intensified offensive in Gaza come as Donald Trump winds up his trip to the Middle East, where he has visited Saudi Arabia and Qatar and was due to arrive in the United Arab Emirates. There had been widespread hopes that Trump’s regional visit could usher in a ceasefire deal or a renewal of humanitarian aid to Gaza, where a tight Israeli blockade is now in its third month.
Trump said on Thursday he wanted the United States to “take” Gaza and turn it into a “freedom zone”, a possible reiteration of aplan he put forward in Februaryfor the US to take control of the Palestinian territory to allow for its reconstruction as a luxury leisure and business hub. The scheme involved the possible permanent displacement of much or all of its population of 2.3 million.
“I have concepts for Gaza that I think are very good: make it a freedom zone, let the United States get involved and make it just a freedom zone,” Trump said in Qatar. “I’d be proud to have the United States have it, take it, make it a freedom zone.”
Analysts said the omission of Israel from Trump’s itinerary was a significant blow to Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, andevidence of tensionbetween the two leaders.
Netanyahu, who leads the most rightwing government in Israel’s history, vowed earlier in the week to push ahead with an expanded offensive in Gaza to achieve Israel’s stated war aims of “crushing” Hamas and freeing the 58 hostages it is holding.
Hamas seized 251 hostages in its October 2023 attack into Israel, during which its militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Israel’s subsequent offensive has killed at least 52,928 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Gaza’s health ministry, which the UN considers reliable.
The numbers of casualties reported over the last 48 hours –about 160– have not been confirmed independently. Israeli officials have said many of the recent strikes targeted senior Hamas commanders and accuse Hamas of using civilians as human shields, a charge the militant Islamist organisation denies.
Israel is coming under increasing pressure over its ongoing blockade of Gaza. Stocks offood and fuel are almost exhausted. Nearly half a million Palestinians are facing possible starvation, while 1 million others can barely get enough food, according to findings by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a leading international authority on the severity of hunger crises.
Israel, which claims the blockade is necessary to stop Hamas looting and selling aid to fund its military and other operations, has put forward a plan to distribute humanitarian assistance from a series of hubs in Gaza run by private contractors and protected by Israeli troops.
Vetted representatives of families would be allowed to pick up monthly food packages from six hubs located in southern Gaza.
The US-based Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has been established to manage the new scheme, announced on Wednesday that it would begin operating in Gaza by the end of the month and that it had asked Israel to lift its blockade.
Israel has not commented on the statement.
Aid officials in Gaza including from the UN have described the scheme as unworkable, inadequate, dangerous and potentially unlawful, and Gulf states that were approached for funding havereportedly refusedto back the plan.