Gaza toll passes 100 as truce efforts build
Israeli air strikes killed 24 Palestinians on Monday, hiking the Gaza death toll to 101 as global efforts to broker a truce to end the worst violence in four years gathered pace.
In the latest bloodshed, an Israeli missile killed a senior Islamic Jihad militant in a strike on a Gaza City tower housing Palestinian and international media, the Israeli army and militants said.
It was the second time in as many days Israeli warplanes have targeted the building, with Israel accusing the militants of “cynically (using) those inside civilian-populated institutions as human shields”.
As the violence raged for a sixth day, ceasefire efforts gathered steam, with Hamas officials in Cairo saying Egyptian-led talks with Israel were “positive” but now focused on the need to guarantee any truce.
Desperate for a safe haven, many Gaza families have fled their homes in search of a safe place, with some seeking haven in the south, which has seen fewer strikes.
But they know nowhere is safe.
“My son Mohammed refuses to eat. He follows me everywhere because he’s so scared and asks me every 10 minutes when we’re going to die,” said Umm Jihad, 37. “He says he won’t go back to school because he’s scared he’ll be martyred or that he’ll come back from school and find that I or his brothers have been killed,” she said.
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