More than 100 people were killed in strikes fired by Israel across Gaza in the early hours of Saturday, February 24, 2024.
The ministry announced on Saturday morning that at least 103 more people were killed in strikes overnight, with many others believed to be missing under rubble.
An Israeli air strike, on Friday, destroyed the Gaza home of well-known Palestinian comedian, Mahmoud Zuaiter, killing at least 23 people and injuring dozens more, the health ministry said.
Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Thursday night, presented his war cabinet with a plan for the post-war Gaza Strip that envisages civil affairs being run by Palestinian officials without links to Hamas.
The plan stipulates that, even after the war, the Israeli army would have “indefinite freedom” to operate throughout Gaza to prevent any resurgence of terror activity, according to the proposals.
It also states that Israel will move ahead with a plan, already underway, to establish a security buffer zone inside Gaza along the territory’s border.
Israeli airstrikes kill 67 Palestinians in Gaza
The plan drew criticism from the United States, with National Security Council spokesman John Kirby saying Friday that Washington had been “consistently clear with our Israeli counterparts” about what was needed in post-war Gaza.
“The Palestinian people should have a voice and a vote… through a revitalised Palestinian Authority,” he said, adding that the United States also did not “believe in a reduction of the size of Gaza”.
Asked about the plan during a visit to Argentina, the U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said he would “reserve judgement” until seeing all the details, but that Washington was against any “reoccupation” of Gaza after the war.
Senior Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, dismissed Netanyahu’s plan as unworkable.
“When it comes to the day after in the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu is presenting ideas which he knows fully well will never succeed,” Hamdan told AFP.
The war started after Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
Hamas militants also took hostages, 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 30 presumed dead, according to Israel.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 29,514 people, mostly women and children, according to the latest count by Gaza’s health ministry on Friday.
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