Palestinian health officials and U.N. aid workers report at least 30 people killed in Israeli strikes in central Gaza overnight, while the Israeli military reports that it conducted operations in Gaza and southern Lebanon in the past 24 hours.
Senior emergency officer Louise Wateridge with the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees — UNRWA — reported Friday that 30 people were killed in Israeli strikes in central Gaza, citing local media sources. She spoke via videoconference at a news briefing in Geneva.
Wateridge described the scene to reporters as “horrific.”
“There are parents looking for their children, children covered in dust and blood looking for their parents, multiple injuries on top of the casualties reported, and people still buried under the rubble,” she said.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza reported Friday that a total of 40 people were killed in the previous 24 hours. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths.
Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces, said on the X social media platform that its troops conducted operations in the Jabaliya and Beit Lahia areas of northern Gaza, where the troops located and destroyed launchers they said were aimed at perimeter Gaza communities. The report said numerous weapons were discovered as well.
The IDF also reported one of its combat teams continues to fight in the Rafah area of southern Gaza. Over the past 24 hours, the IDF, said its troops located shafts, eliminated terrorists and destroyed terrorist infrastructure.
As part of the attacks, Israeli forces identified a squad of armed terrorists moving toward the forces, and an Israel Air Force aircraft attacked the squad and eliminated it.
In Lebanon
The IDF also reported Friday that its 769th Brigade “remains deployed in southern Lebanon and along the border, conducting operational activities to eliminate threats to Israeli citizens, while acting in accordance with the ceasefire understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”
The report said IDF soldiers discovered a large cache of weapons, including concealed Kornet missile launchers, AK-47 rifles, magazines, other military equipment and missiles hidden in dense, mountainous terrain.
The troops also located and confiscated an antitank missile launch site they said had been used by Hezbollah to fire at communities in northern Israel during the past year.
Ceasefire talks
The activities come a day after U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan raised hopes for a Gaza ceasefire. Sulivan, who was in Tel Aviv as part of a Mideast tour, said Hamas negotiators “did adapt” after the announcement of a ceasefire deal in Lebanon.
“For months, we believe Hamas was waiting for lots of other actors and forces to come to their rescue, to come to their aid,” Sulivan said, adding that “we believe that it puts us in a position to be able to close this negotiation.”
The Israel-Lebanon ceasefire halted months of intensified fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which included Israeli ground operations inside Lebanon and airstrikes that killed multiple Hezbollah leaders.
Hezbollah launched cross-border attacks against Israel in solidarity with Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip following the October 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel. That attack killed about 1,200 people and took 250 hostages. Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 44,800 people, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.
The United States, United Kingdom and several other Western countries designate Hamas as a terror group.
Natasha Mozgovaya, senior analyst with VOA’s Eurasia Division, contributed to this report. Some material came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
