Twenty-four Israeli soldiers were killed in Gaza on Monday, by far the biggest single-day Israeli death toll in the three-month war against Hamas, as talks about a ceasefire intensified and Palestinian casualties continued to climb.
The deaths came amid fierce fighting around the southern city of Khan Younis, with dozens of Palestinians killed and wounded. The Israeli casualties are likely to increase domestic pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu over his leadership and handling of the war effort.
An Israeli military spokesperson said 21 soldiers were killed in Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza when two buildings they had mined for demolition collapsed after militants fired grenades at a nearby tank. Reports in local media said explosives set by the soldiers detonated prematurely.
Earlier, the military said three soldiers were killed in a separate attack in southern Gaza. A total of 221 soldiers have been killed in the offensive, which some analysts in Israel have said could continue for many months, even into next year.
The high toll of Israeli troops in fighting comes at a time when Israel is beginning to see stirrings of discontent with Netanyahu’s war strategy, which aims to “crush” Hamas but which has not involved detailed discussion of what would come next for Gaza.
Israel’s forces have encircled Khan Younis, where it believes Hamas leaders are sheltering in tunnels. The recent Israeli advances have taken them close to areas sheltering a million or more Palestinians forced out of other parts of the territory by fighting or the destruction of their homes and all essential infrastructure.
Aid officials say Israeli blockades and the storming of hospitals in Khan Younis in the last 48 hours have left the wounded and dead beyond the reach of rescuers. The dead were being buried inside the grounds of Khan Younis’s main Nasser hospital because it was unsafe to leave to reach the cemetery. Footage filmed by the Palestinian journalist Hamdan El-Dahdouh showed persistent gunfire hitting the top of the main building.
At the European hospital in southern Khan Younis, a resident brought in five corpses, piled on a mattress on a donkey cart, Reuters reported. “I found them face-down in the street,” Ahed Masmah said.
Israeli officials say Hamas fighters operate in and around medical facilities, making them legitimate targets. Hospital staff and Hamas deny this.
The Israeli offensive began after Hamas’s attacks into Israel on 7 October, when the group killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted about 240 hostages. About half of these remain in Gaza, and dozens are thought to have died there.
At least 25,295 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been confirmed killed in the Israeli offensive, according to Palestinian authorities, and thousands more dead are thought to remain unidentified in the rubble. Almost 200 Palestinians were killed in the space of 24 hours, Palestinian officials said.
Egypt and Qatar, which have brokered past agreements between Israel and Hamas, have been developing a proposal involving a series of phased ceasefires and releases. White House spokesman John Kirby on Tuesday said US Middle East envoy Brett McGurk was in Cairo for “active” discussions on securing the release of Israeli hostages and a humanitarian pause in the fighting, which he said the Biden administration would back.
A total of 110 Israelis and other nationals were freed in return for 240 Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons as part of a week-long truce at the end of November. Several attempts at a ceasefire since have failed.
On Sunday, Netanyahu rejected Hamas’s conditions for ending the war and releasing the hostages, which included the Islamist group retaining control of Gaza and Israel withdrawing completely. In response, a Hamas official in Qatar said Netanyahu’s refusal to end the military offensive in Gaza meant there was “no chance for the return of the captives”.
A senior Egyptian official said Israel had proposed a two-month ceasefire in which the hostages would be freed in exchange for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, and senior Hamas leaders in Gaza would be allowed to relocate to other countries.
The official, who was not authorised to brief media and spoke on condition of anonymity, said Hamas had rejected the proposal.
Asked about media reports that a ceasefire deal was being discussed, an Israeli government spokesperson, Eylon Levy, said the war’s goals were unchanged.
“The destruction of Hamas’s governing and military capabilities in the Gaza Strip and the return of all the hostages,” he said. “There will be no ceasefire that leaves the hostages in Gaza and Hamas in power.”
Support for the war remains high among Israelis, but opinion polls show support has cratered for Netanyahu and his far-right coalition. Weekly Saturday night rallies demanding the release of hostages still held in Gaza have been supplemented in recent weeks by growing calls for elections.
Humanitarian officials made new appeals for further aid to be allowed to reach Gaza.
“The situation in Gaza is of course slipping every day into a much more catastrophic situation,” Abeer Etefa, the World Food Programme’s senior Middle East spokesperson, told a press briefing.
“I think the risk of having pockets of famine in Gaza is very much still there.”
The conflict in Gaza has been accompanied by an escalation in violence elsewhere in the Middle East, especially where armed groups allied to Iran operate, including Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
