Children Fetching Water Among 43 Killed By Israeli Strikes In Gaza Amid Truce Talks Deadlock

At least 10 people, including eight children, were killed by an Israeli missile in central Gaza, while they were waiting in a queue at a water distribution point, emergency service officials said. They were among 43 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on Sunday, as talks for a ceasefire between Hamas and the Benjamin Netanyahu government stalled.

Delegations from Israel and the Palestinian group have spent days trying to find middle ground on a US proposal for a 60-day ceasefire to halt 21 months of bitter fighting in the Gaza Strip. While US President Donald Trump was hoping for a breakthrough soon, negotiators from both sides accused the other of blocking attempts to secure an agreement at the indirect talks in the Qatari capital, Doha, on Saturday. 

Amid apparent deadlock, Israel continued attacking Gaza, where most of the population of more than two million have been displaced at least once during the war. 

Locals Narrate Ordeal

Gaza's Civil Defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said at least 43 people were killed in the latest Israeli strikes on Sunday, including 11 when a market in Gaza City was hit. Ten people were also victims of a drone strike at a water point in the Nuseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza.

"We woke up to the sound of two large explosions...Our neighbour and his children were under the rubble," Khaled Rayyan told news agency AFP after a house was flattened also in Nuseirat.

Another resident, Mahmud al-Shami, called on the negotiators to secure an end to the war.

"What happened to us has never happened in the entire history of humanity. Enough," he said.

In southern Gaza, three people were killed when Israeli jets hit a tent sheltering displaced Palestinians in the coastal Al-Mawasi area, the civil defence spokesman said.

On Saturday, medics said 17 people, who were trying to get food aid, were killed when Israeli troops opened fire in a new mass shooting around a US-backed aid distribution system that the US says has resulted in 800 people killed in six weeks.

Witnesses who spoke to news agency Reuters described people being shot in the head and torso. 

Seven UN agencies on Saturday warned that a fuel shortage had reached "critical levels", threatening aid operations, hospital care and already chronic food insecurity.

Israel's Claim

But the Israeli military claimed its troops had only fired warning shots, and that its review of the incident had found no evidence of anyone hurt by its soldiers' fire.

Israeli Military, in a statement on Sunday, said that in the past 24 hours, fighter jets "struck more than 150 terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip".

The targets included militants, weapons storage sites, and anti-tank and sniper positions, the military statement said.

War In Gaza

The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas's October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that led to 1,219 deaths, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Out of 251 people taken hostage that day, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 that the Israeli military says are dead.

Hamas-run Gaza's health ministry says that at least 58,026 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in Israel's military reprisals. The UN considers the figures reliable.