News Desk
CAIRO: Israel carried out airstrikes on dozens of Hamas targets in Gaza over the past 24 hours, it said on Friday, pressing attacks that Palestinian health authorities said had killed more than 110 people in two days.
The surge in operations and casualties comes amid a renewed push to reach a ceasefire agreement in the 15-month-old war before US President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan 20. Israeli mediators were dispatched on Thursday to resume talks in Doha brokered by Qatari and Egyptian mediators.
The Gaza health ministry said more than 40 people were killed on Friday after 71 were killed a day earlier, including in Al-Mawasi, an area in central Gaza previously declared a humanitarian safe zone by Israeli authorities.
The Israeli military said it had hit around 40 Hamas gathering points as well as command and control centres.
On Friday, the military told civilians in the area of al-Bureij in central Gaza to evacuate ahead of an operation it ordered following rocket attacks from the area. It said residents should move to the humanitarian zone for their own safety.
Israel has confirmed it is holding Kamal Adwan hospital director Dr Hussam Abu Safiya after earlier telling a local NGO that it was unaware of his case, sparking concern for his well-being, according to BBC.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) statement said he was “currently being investigated by Israeli security forces” in person. The statement did not offer an explanation for the confusion but repeated that he was suspected of being a “terrorist” and for “holding a rank” in Hamas.
Dr Abu Safiya was arrested as the Israeli military forced patients and medical staff to leave Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza last Friday.
On Thursday, the IDF told Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) that it had “no indication of the arrest or detention of the individual in question”.
The PHRI filed a petition with the Israeli High Court of Justice on Thursday, demanding Dr Abu Safiya’s location be disclosed. It said the court had given the IDF a week to comply.
Meanwhile, Amnesty head Agnès Callamard said Israeli authorities must “urgently disclose his whereabouts”. She said Israel had detained “hundreds of Palestinian healthcare workers from Gaza without charge or trial” and said they had been “subjected to torture and other ill-treatment and been held in incommunicado detention”.
