Israel-Gaza war live: Israeli military says it ‘regrets harm to civilians’ after dozens killed in refugee camp strike | Israel-Gaza war

It’s 1am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

• A total of 21,320 Palestinians have been killed and 55,603 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, a Gaza health ministry spokesperson said on Thursday.

• At least 20 people were killed and 55 wounded by an Israeli airstrike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday, according to a Gaza health ministry spokesperson. The incident occurred near the Kuwaiti hospital, Al Jazeera reported, adding that it had “completely flattened” a residential full of displaced people. The report has not been verified.

• A Hamas delegation is due in Cairo on Friday to give its “observations” about an Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire that would end the war in Gaza, a Hamas official has said. It comes after Egypt said it had put forward a framework proposal to end the conflict that includes three stages ending with a ceasefire, and said it was awaiting responses on the plan. Egyptian security sources had previously said the proposal included a multi-stage ceasefire involving prisoner releases by Israel and Hamas.

• Hamas is “open to any ideas or proposals for a complete and final cessation of aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip”, an official with the Palestinian militant group has said. Osama Hamdan, at a press conference on Thursday, said Hamas is not interested in a “partial or temporary cessation of aggression”, adding that the remaining hostages held in Gaza would only be released after a permanent ceasefire is implemented.

• Benjamin Netanyahu has cancelled a war cabinet meeting that was scheduled for Thursday night to discuss Israel’s plan for Gaza after the war with Hamas ends. The Israeli prime minister has reportedly refused requests from security officials to make plans for control of Gaza after the war with Hamas ends.

• The main focus of fighting in Gaza is now in central areas, where Israeli forces have ordered civilians out over the past several days as their tanks advance. Tens of thousands of people fleeing the huge Nusseirat, Bureij and Maghazi districts were heading south or west on Thursday into the already overwhelmed city of Deir al-Balah along the Mediterranean coast, crowding into hastily built camps of makeshift tents.

• The number of children who have been killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has reached an “unprecedented” level, the UN children’s fund (Unicef) has warned on Thursday. Some 83 children have been killed in the West Bank in the past 12 weeks, Unicef said in a statement. A separate UN report published on Thursday deplored what it said was a “rapid deterioration” of human rights in the West Bank and urged Israeli authorities to end violence against the Palestinian population there. The office of the UN high commissioner for human rights (OHCHR) said about 4,785 Palestinians had been detained and 300 killed in the occupied West Bank since 7 October.

• Israeli airstrikes hit near the Syrian capital, Damascus, and in the country’s south on Thursday, Syria’s defence ministry and state media has said. The strikes are believed to have targeted a Syrian army air defence base and a radar station in the Tel al-Sahn area in the Sweida province in southwestern Syria, according to sources.

• Joe Biden has said he is “devastated” to learn of the death of Judith Weinstein, a US-Israeli-Canadian woman, during the Hamas attacks on 7 October. The kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel on Thursday said Weinstein, 70, was “fatally wounded” during the attacks alongside her Israeli-American husband, Gadi Haggai, 73. It said the bodies of the couple “remain held in captivity by Hamas”.

• The Israeli military has said it “regrets the harm” caused by an Israeli strike that killed dozens of people in the Maghazi refugee camp in the centre of Gaza earlier this week. About 86 people were killed in the Israeli airstrike in the Maghazi camp, east of Deir al-Balah, late on Sunday, according to figures by the UN human rights office. “The type of munition did not match the nature of the attack, causing extensive collateral damage that could have been avoided,” an Israeli military official told Kan news on Thursday.

• The Israel Defense Forces (DF) has admitted it “failed in its mission” after its soldiers mistakenly killed three Israeli hostages in Gaza earlier this month. In a report of its final findings of an investigation into the 15 December killing, the IDF’s chief of staff Herzi Halevi said it had “failed in the mission of rescuing the abductees” and that the shooting “did not match the risk and the situation”.

• Israel has given preliminary approval to Cyprus to set up a maritime humanitarian aid corridor to Gaza, Israels’s foreign ministry has said. The proposal, which has been in the works for more than a month, aims to deliver large quantities of aid to Palestinians in Gaza. It comes after the UN security council last week passed a resolution calling for “safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale” into Gaza.

A Hamas official has said that a delegation from the Palestinian militant group is due in Cairo on Friday to give its “observations” about an Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire that would end the war in Gaza.

The Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP:

A high-level delegation from the Hamas political office will visit Cairo tomorrow to meet Egyptian officials and give the response of the Palestinian factions, including several observations, to their plan.

The official said these observations focus on “the modalities of the planned exchanges and the number of Palestinian prisoners to be freed, as well as obtaining guarantees for a complete Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza”.

As we reported earlier, Egypt has said that it put forward a framework proposal to end the conflict in Gaza. The plan includes three stages ending with a ceasefire, according to an Egyptian official, who added that further details of the plan would be released once it had received responses.

The plan was put last week to officials of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which is also battling Israeli forces in the territory, AFP reported. Citing sources close to Hamas, it said the plan provides for renewable ceasefires, a staggered release of hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israel, and ultimately a ceasefire to end the war.

It also provides for a Palestinian government of technocrats after talks involving “all Palestinian factions”, which would be responsible for governing and rebuilding in postwar Gaza, it said.

It’s just past 10pm in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

• At least 20 people were killed and 55 wounded by an Israeli airstrike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip today, according to a Gaza health ministry spokesperson. The incident occurred near the Kuwaiti hospital, Al Jazeera reported, adding that it had “completely flattened” a residential full of displaced people. The report has not been verified. A total of 21,320 Palestinians have been killed and 55,603 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, a Gaza health ministry spokesperson said on Thursday.

• Egypt said it has put forward a framework proposal to end the conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip that includes three stages ending with a ceasefire, and said it was awaiting responses on the plan. Egyptian security sources had previously said the proposal included a multi-stage ceasefire involving prisoner releases by Israel and Hamas. Egypt would give further details of the plan once those responses are received, an official said.

• Israel’s war cabinet is expected to meet on Thursday night to discuss its plan for Gaza after the war with Hamas ends, according to reports. The meeting comes following reports that Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has been refusing to arrange a meeting on decisions relating to “the day after” and plans for control of the Palestinian territory.

• Hamas is “open to any ideas or proposals for a complete and final cessation of aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip”, an official with the Palestinian militant group has said. Osama Hamdan, at a press conference on Thursday, said Hamas is not interested in a “partial or temporary cessation of aggression”, adding that the remaining hostages held in Gaza would only be released after a permanent ceasefire is implemented.

• The main focus of fighting in Gaza is now in central areas, where Israeli forces have ordered civilians out over the past several days as their tanks advance. Tens of thousands of people fleeing the huge Nusseirat, Bureij and Maghazi districts were heading south or west on Thursday into the already overwhelmed city of Deir al-Balah along the Mediterranean coast, crowding into hastily built camps of makeshift tents. Israel’s military campaign and its repeated orders for civilians to evacuate to the south of the Gaza Strip have led to the displacement of 85% of the Palestinian population.

• The number of children who have been killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has reached an “unprecedented” level, the UN children’s fund (Unicef) has warned on Thursday. Some 83 children have been killed in the West Bank in the past 12 weeks, Unicef said in a statement – more than double the number of children killed in all of 2022. A separate UN report published on Thursday deplored what it said was a “rapid deterioration” of human rights in the West Bank and urged Israeli authorities to end violence against the Palestinian population there. The office of the UN high commissioner for human rights (OHCHR) said about 4,785 Palestinians had been detained and 300 killed in the occupied West Bank since 7 October.

• Joe Biden has said he is “devastated” to learn of the death of Judith Weinstein, a US-Israeli-Canadian woman, during the Hamas attacks on 7 October. The kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel on Thursday said Weinstein, 70, was “fatally wounded” during the attacks alongside her Israeli-American husband, Gadi Haggai, 73. It said the bodies of the couple “remain held in captivity by Hamas”.

• The Israeli military has said it “regrets the harm” caused by an Israeli strike that killed dozens of people in the Maghazi refugee camp in the centre of Gaza earlier this week. About 86 people were killed in the Israeli airstrike in the Maghazi camp, east of Deir al-Balah, late on Sunday, according to figures by the UN human rights office. “The type of munition did not match the nature of the attack, causing extensive collateral damage that could have been avoided,” an Israeli military official told Kan news on Thursday.

• The Israel Defense Forces (DF) has admitted it “failed in its mission” after its soldiers mistakenly killed three Israeli hostages in Gaza earlier this month. In a report of its final findings of an investigation into the 15 December killing, the IDF’s chief of staff Herzi Halevi said it had “failed in the mission of rescuing the abductees” and that the shooting “did not match the risk and the situation”.

• Many of the hostages released from detention in Gaza by Hamas in November still require intensive treatment for the trauma from their weeks in captivity, a leading Israeli psychiatrist has said. Among the 14 freed hostages treated at the Ichilov Tel Aviv medical centre were child hostages who had been drugged by their captors, those who had subjected to or witnessed sexual abuse, a woman who had been kept in a tiny cage, and another who had a breakdown after being kept in complete darkness for days, she said.

• The UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) has said that 40% of Gaza’s population is now at risk of famine. Every day in the Palestinian territory is “a struggle for survival, finding food and finding water,” Thomas White, the director of UNRWA affairs in Gaza, said. The agency said the “only remaining hope is a humanitarian ceasefire.”

• Israel has given preliminary approval to Cyprus to set up a maritime humanitarian aid corridor to Gaza, Israels’s foreign ministry has said. The proposal, which has been in the works for more than a month, aims to deliver large quantities of aid to Palestinians in Gaza. It comes after the UN security council last week passed a resolution calling for “safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale” into Gaza.

• Israeli officials have hinted that the “diplomatic hourglass” is running out to reach a negotiated solution to the escalating fighting on the boundary with Lebanon. Security sources said the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah fired the most rockets and weaponised drones on Wednesday that it had in any single day since the clashes across the border began.

A Hamas official has said the Palestinian militant group is “open to any ideas or proposals for a complete and final cessation of aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip”.

Osama Hamdan, at a press conference on Thursday, said Hamas is not interested in a “partial or temporary cessation of aggression”, AP reported.

He reiterated Hamas’s position that the remaining hostages who have been held in Gaza since the 7 October attacks on Israel would only be released after a permanent ceasefire is implemented, the report said.

Asked about current discussions about a roadmap to end the war, including a framework proposal put forward by Egypt, Hamdan said the governance of Gaza would be a “decision of the Palestinian people alone” and that Palestinians in Gaza would “not accept a leadership that comes on the back of a Zionist or American tank or under the protection of this tank”.