Israeli airstrikes on Sunday, hit two refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip, killing scores of people, health officials said. The strikes came as the U.S. keeps urging Israel to take a humanitarian pause from its relentless bombardment of Gaza and rising civilian deaths.
The U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken have been having talks with leaders in the Middle East. He traveled to Ramallah in the West Bank for a previously unannounced meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Blinken later flew to Baghdad for talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani. On Saturday Blinken met with Arab Foreign Ministers in Jordan, after holding talks in Israel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who insists there could be no temporary cease-fire until all Israeli hostages held by Hamas are released.
The Palestinian death toll in the Israel-Hamas war surpassed 9,700 in recent times with more than 4,000 of them children and minors, according to the Hamas-run Health Minister in Gaza. In the occupied West Bank, more than 140 Palestinians have been killed in violence and Israeli raids.
More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, most of them in the October 7 Hamas attack that started the fighting, and 242 hostages were taken from Israel into Gaza by the militant group.
