Airstrike kills 20 in central Gaza and fighting rages as Israeli leaders fly wartime divisions

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — An Israeli airstrike killed 20 people in central Gaza, most of them women and children, and fighting raged in the north Sunday as Israeli leaders expressed their divisions over who should govern Gaza after the war, now in its eighth month.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced criticism from his own war cabinet, along with his main political rival, Benny Gantzthreatening to leave the government if a plan is not formulated by June 8, including an international administration for post-war Gaza.

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan was to meet with senior Israeli leaders on Sunday to discuss an ambitious US plan for Saudi Arabia to recognize Israel and help the Palestinian Authority govern Gaza in exchange for path to eventual statehood.

Netanyahu, who opposes Palestinian statehood, rejected the proposals, saying Israel would maintain unlimited security control over Gaza and partner with local Palestinians not affiliated with Hamas or the Palestinian Authority. supported by the West.

Gantz’s withdrawal would not bring down Netanyahu’s coalition government, but it would make it more dependent on far-right allies who support “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza, total military occupation and reconstruction of settlements Jews.

Even as discussions about post-war planning take on new weight, the war still rages and there is no end in sight. In recent weeks, Hamas has regrouped in areas of northern Gaza that were heavily bombed at the start of the war and where Israeli ground troops had already operated.

The airstrike in Nuseirat, a Palestinian refugee camp in central Gaza dating from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, killed 20 people, including eight women and four children, according to archives at the Al Martyrs Hospital. -Aqsa, in the neighboring town of Deir al-Balah, which received the bodies.

Another strike on a street in Nuseirat killed five more people, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent emergency services. In Deir al-Balah, a strike killed Zahed al-Houli, a senior Hamas-led police officer, and another man, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

Palestinians have reported more airstrikes and heavy fighting in northern Gaza, which has been largely isolated by Israeli troops for months and where the World Food Program says a famine is underway.

Civil Defense says the strikes hit several houses near Kamal Adwan hospital in the town of Beit Lahiya, killing at least 10 people. Footage released by rescuers showed them trying to pull a woman’s body from the rubble as explosions echoed in the background and smoke rose.

In the nearby Jabliya urban refugee camp, residents reported a heavy wave of artillery and airstrikes.

“The situation is very difficult,” said Abdel-Kareem Radwan, a 48-year-old man from Jabaliya. He said the entire eastern part has become a combat zone where Israeli warplanes “hit everything that moves.”

Mahmoud Bassal, a Civil Defense spokesman, said rescuers had recovered at least 150 bodies, more than half of them women and children, since Israel launched the operation in Jabaliya last week. He said around 300 homes had been “completely destroyed”.

Israel launched its offensive after the October 7 Hamas attack, in which Palestinian militants stormed into southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping some 250.

The war has killed at least 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Around 80% of the 2.3 million Palestinians have been internally displaced, often multiple times.

Israel says it is trying to avoid harming civilians and blames the high death toll and destruction on Hamas, which positions fighters, tunnels and rocket launchers in dense residential areas.

Netanyahu’s critics, including thousands of protesters who took to the streets on Saturday, accuse him of prolonging the war and rejecting a ceasefire deal that would free the hostages so he can avoid having to account for the security failures that led to the attack.

Polls show that Gantz, a political centrist, would likely succeed Netanyahu if early elections are held. This would expose Netanyahu to prosecution over long-standing corruption allegations.

Netanyahu denies any political motivation and says the offensive must continue until Hamas is dismantled and the nearly 100 hostages held in Gaza, as well as the remains of more than 30 others, are returned. He said there was no point in discussing post-war arrangements while Hamas continues to fight, because the militants have threatened anyone who cooperates with Israel.

Netanyahu is also facing pressure from Israel’s closest ally, the United States, which has provided crucial military aid and diplomatic cover for the offensive while expressing growing frustration with the conduct of the war by Israel.

President Joe Biden’s administration recently blocked a delivery of 3,500 bombs weighing up to 2,000 pounds (900 kilograms) each and said the United States would not provide offensive weapons for a full-scale invasion of the town of Rafah in southern Gaza, citing fears of a humanitarian crisis. disaster.

But last week, after Israel launched what it says was a limited operation in Rafah, the administration told lawmakers it would proceed with sales of weapons, tank ammunition, tactical vehicles and mortars worth $1 billion, according to congressional aides.

Sullivan is expected in Israel after meeting Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Saturday. The administration is working on an ambitious plan in which Saudi Arabia would recognize Israel and join other Arab states to help administer and rebuild Gaza, in exchange for a U.S. defense pact and aid for construction of a civil nuclear program.

But U.S. and Saudi officials say the deal requires Israel to agree to a credible path to an eventual Palestinian state, something Netanyahu has repeatedly ruled out.

In Gantz’s ultimatum, he expressed support for normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. But he also declared: “we will not allow any external power, friendly or hostile, to impose a Palestinian state on us.”

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Magdy reported from Cairo and Krauss from Jerusalem.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war