Reports of 17 dead in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip

At least 17 Palestinians have been killed in new Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, the territory’s Hamas-controlled Civil Defense Force said on Wednesday.

Ten people were killed when a school building was bombed in the city of Gaza, a civil defense spokesman said. Seven others were killed in an attack on a residential building in the al-Zaytun neighborhood in the north of the coastal strip.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said a senior Hamas member was killed in the attack, adding that the man had led and participated in attacks on IDF forces in the Gaza Strip.

A large quantity of weapons were stored in the room he used, the IDF said.

The Hamas-controlled health authority announced that more than 44,200 people have been killed and more than 104,700 injured in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war almost fourteen months ago.

The figures, which cannot be independently verified, do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Speaking to dpa on Wednesday, a Hamas representative said the militant organization was pushing for its previous terms for a ceasefire.

He said that while Hamas respects the decision of the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah to suspend hostilities, the Palestinian people were not willing to give up their resistance against Israel despite the suffering in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas’s conditions have remained unchanged since the start of the Gaza war. It says, among other things, that the release of about 100 hostages, as demanded by Israel, is conditional on the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners and a complete withdrawal of the Israeli army from the Gaza Strip.

Israel wants to leave its troops in strategic positions in the closed area.

The massacre carried out by Hamas and other terrorist groups in Israel on October 7, 2023, killed approximately 1,200 people and took 250 hostage to Gaza. According to estimates, about half of the hundred or so remaining hostages are alive.