PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES, Feb 24: Dozens of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been killed in the latest Israeli strikes, the Hamas-run territorys health ministry said Saturday, after Israels spy chief joined talks in Paris seeking to unblock negotiations on a truce.
The talks come after a plan for a post-war Gaza unveiled by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drew criticism from key ally the United States, and was rejected by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The talks also come alongside deepening fears for Gazas civilians desperate for food. The United Nations main aid body for Palestinians, UNRWA, said Gazans were "in extreme peril while the world watches".
Hamas said on Saturday that Israeli forces had launched more than 70 strikes on civilian homes in Gazan cities including Deir al-Balah, Khan Yunis and Rafah over the previous 24 hours. The health ministry said at least 92 people were killed.
Israels military said it was "intensifying the operations" in western Khan Yunis using tanks, close-range fire and aircraft.
"The soldiers raided the residence of a senior military intelligence operative" in the area and destroyed a tunnel shaft, a military statement said.
Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that has ruled Gaza since 2007, said fighting was raging in the northern Gaza district of Zeitun.
In nearby Jabalia refugee camp, tempers are rising and on Friday dozens of people held an impromptu protest.
"We didn die from air strikes but we are dying from hunger," said a sign held by one child.
In the camp, bedraggled children waited expectantly, holding plastic containers and battered cooking pots for what little food is available. Residents have taken to eating scavenged scraps of rotten corn, animal fodder unfit for human consumption and even leaves.
Gazas health ministry said a two-month-old baby identified as Mahmud Fatuh had died of "malnutrition".
"The risk of famine is projected to increase as long as the government of Israel continues to impede the entry of aid into Gaza," as well as access to water, health and other services, the charity Save the Children said.
Israel has defended its efforts to deliver aid into Gaza, saying that 13,000 trucks carrying aid have entered Gaza since the start of the war.
The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said in a report on Friday that in Rafah, near the Egyptian border, people are reportedly stopping aid trucks to take food, a measure of their desperation.
The war began after Hamass 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.
Israels retaliatory offensive has killed at least 29,606 people, mostly women and children, according to the latest tally released on Saturday by Gazas health ministry.
With war still raging after more than four months, Netanyahu on Thursday unveiled a plan for post-war Gaza that sees civil affairs being run by Palestinian officials without links to Hamas.
The plan says that, even after the conflict, Israels army would have "indefinite freedom" to operate throughout Gaza to prevent any resurgence of terror activity, according to the proposals.
It also says Israel will move ahead with a plan, already underway, to establish a security buffer zone inside Gaza along the territorys border.
A senior Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, said Netanyahu "is presenting ideas which he knows fully well will never succeed".
The plan also drew criticism from the United States.
"The Palestinian people should have a voice and a vote... through a revitalised Palestinian Authority," which currently has partial administrative control in the West Bank, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
He added that the United States did not "believe in a reduction of the size of Gaza". —AFP
