TEL AVIV: Five Israeli soldiers were killed in an attack in the northern Gaza Strip, Israel’s military said Tuesday, while health officials in the Palestinian territory said 51 people were killed in Israeli strikes.
The bloodshed came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was visiting the White House for talks with US President Donald Trump about a ceasefire plan to pause the Gaza fighting. While there was no announcement of a breakthrough, there were signs of progress toward a deal.
The soldiers’ deaths could add to pressure on Netanyahu to strike a deal, as polls in Israel have shown widespread support for ending the 21-month war.
A senior Israeli official said 80-90 percent of the details had been ironed out and a final agreement could be days away. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the sensitive negotiations with the media.
Soldiers attacked with explosive devices
The soldiers were killed roughly two weeks after Israel reported one of its deadliest days in months in Gaza, when seven soldiers were killed after a Palestinian attached a bomb to their armored vehicle.
An Israeli security official said explosive devices were detonated against the five soldiers during an operation in the Beit Hanoun area in northern Gaza, an area where Israel has repeatedly fought regrouping militants.
Militants also opened fire on the forces who were evacuating the wounded soldiers, the official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the attack with the media.
The military said 14 soldiers were wounded in the attack, two of them seriously. It brings the toll of soldiers killed to 888 since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack ignited the war.
Abu Obeida, the spokesperson for Hamas’ armed wing, said on social media that the attack was an “additional blow” against what he described as a “weak” army.
In a statement, Netanyahu sent condolences, saying the soldiers fell “in a campaign to defeat Hamas and to free all of our hostages.”
Children among the dead in Israeli strikes
Health officials at Nasser Hospital, where victims of the Israeli strikes were taken, said one strike targeted tents sheltering displaced people in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, killing four people. A separate strike in Khan Younis killed four people, including a mother, father and their two children, officials said.
“He sleeps in the tent with his two children, Awda and Misk,” said Nisma Al-Baiouk, the sister of one man killed. “My nephew Awda has no face, his face is gone.”
Nasser Hospital records showed a total of 41 people killed on Tuesday.
In central Gaza, Israeli strikes killed another 10 people and wounded 72, according to Awda Hospital in Nuseirat.
Israel’s military had no immediate comment on the strikes, but it blames Hamas for any harm to civilians because the militants operate in populated areas.
The fighting has pushed the health care system in Gaza close to collapse. On Tuesday, the Palestine Red Crescent said the Al-Zaytoun Medical Clinic in Gaza City ceased operations after shelling in the surrounding area. It said the closure would force thousands of civilians to walk long distances to get medical care or obtain vaccinations for children.
Seeking a 60-day pause in fighting
Trump has made clear that, following last month’s 12-day war between Israel and Iran, he would like to see the Gaza war end soon.
White House officials are urging both sides to quickly seal an agreement that would bring about a 60-day pause in the fighting, send aid flooding into Gaza and free at least some of the remaining 50 hostages held in the territory. Netanyahu has said 20 are alive.
A sticking point has been whether the ceasefire will end the war altogether. Hamas has said it is willing to free all the hostages in exchange for an end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Netanyahu says the war will end once Hamas surrenders, disarms and goes into exile — something it refuses to do.
The initial Hamas attack in 2023 killed some 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage. Most have been released in earlier ceasefires. Israel responded with an offensive that has killed over 57,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The ministry, which is under Gaza’s Hamas-run government, does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. The UN and other international organizations see its figures as the most reliable statistics on war casualties.
Israeli strikes kill 51 in Gaza as explosive devices leave 5 Israeli soldiers dead
https://arab.news/p2ns3
Israeli strikes kill 51 in Gaza as explosive devices leave 5 Israeli soldiers dead
- Health officials at Nasser Hospital, where victims of the Israeli strikes were taken, said one strike targeted tents sheltering displaced people in Khan Younis in Gaza
Libya’s security authorities free more than 200 migrants from ‘secret prison’, two security sources say
- Security authorities had found an underground prison, nearly three meters deep, which the sources said was run by a Libyan human trafficker
BENGHAZI: Libya’s security authorities have freed more than 200 migrants from what they described as a secret prison in the town of Kufra in the southeast of the country after they were held captive in inhuman conditions, two security sources from the city told Reuters on Sunday.
The security sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the security authorities had found an underground prison, nearly three meters deep, which the sources said was run by a Libyan human trafficker.
One of the sources said this person had not yet been detained.
“Some of the freed migrants were held captive up to two years in the underground cells,” this source said.
The other source said what the operation had found was “one of the most serious crimes against humanity that has been uncovered in the region.”
“The operation resulted in a raid on a secret prison within the city, where several inhumane underground detention cells were uncovered,” one of the sources added.
The freed migrants are from sub-Saharan Africa, mainly from Somalia and Eritrea, including women and children, the sources said. Kufra lies in eastern Libya, about 1,700 kilometers (1,000 miles) from the capital Tripoli.
Libya has become a transit route for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty to Europe via dangerous routes across the desert and over the Mediterranean since the toppling of Muammar Qaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011.
The oil-based Libyan economy is also a draw for impoverished migrants seeking work, but security throughout the sprawling country is poor, leaving migrants vulnerable to abuses.
At least 21 bodies of migrants were found in a mass grave in eastern Libya last week, with up to 10 survivors in the group bearing signs of having been tortured before they were freed from captivity, two security sources told Reuters.
Libya’s attorney general said in a statement on Friday the authorities in the east of the country had referred a defendant to the court for trial in connection with the mass grave on charges of “committing serious violations against migrants.”
In February last year, 39 bodies of migrants were recovered from about 55 mass graves in Kufra. The town houses tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees who fled the conflict that erupted in Sudan in 2023.
