Israeli forces killed at least 67 people in Gaza with airstrikes that left 30 dead at a seaside café and gunfire that left 22 others dead as Palestinians tried to get desperately needed food aid, witnesses, hospital and health officials said.
One airstrike hit the Al-Baqa Cafe in Gaza City when it was crowded with women and children, said one witness, who was inside.
"Without a warning, all of a sudden, a warplane hit the place, shaking it like an earthquake," he said.
At least 30 people were killed and dozens were wounded, said the head of the Health Ministry's emergency and ambulance service in northern Gaza, with many of the wounded in critical condition.
Two other strikes on a Gaza City street killed 15 people, according to Shifa Hospital, which received the casualties.
The café, one of the few businesses to continue operating during the 20-month war, was a gathering spot for residents seeking internet access and a place to charge their phones.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces killed 11 people who had been seeking food in southern Gaza, according to witnesses, hospitals, and Gaza's Health Ministry.
Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis said it received the bodies of people shot while returning from an aid site associated with the Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Fund.
It was part of a deadly pattern that has killed more than 500 Palestinians in the chaotic and controversial aid distribution programme over the past month.
The shootings happened around 3km from the GHF site in Khan Younis, as Palestinians returned from the site along the only accessible route.
Palestinians are often forced to travel long distances to access the GHF hubs in hopes of obtaining aid.
Nasser Hospital said another person was killed near a GHF hub in the southern city of Rafah.
Ten others were killed at a United Nations aid warehouse in northern Gaza, according to the Health Ministry’s ambulance and emergency service.
Netanyahu to visit White House
The continued killing of Palestinians in Gaza in Israeli attacks comes as a US official confirmed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit the White House next week for talks with President Donald Trump, as the US ramps up the pressure for a ceasefire in Gaza.
A day after Mr Trump called to "Make the deal in Gaza, get the hostages back", Israel's strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer, a confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's, was also travelling to Washington for talks on Iran and Gaza, according to an Israeli official.
Mr Dermer is expected to begin meetings with Trump administration officials tomorrow, the source in Washington said.
But on the ground in the Palestinian enclave, there was no sign of fighting letting up.
The Israeli military issued evacuation orders to residents in large districts in northern Gaza, forcing a new wave of displacement.
"Explosions never stopped; they bombed schools and homes. It felt like earthquakes," said Salah, 60, a father of five children, from Gaza City.
"In the news we hear a ceasefire is near, on the ground we see death and we hear explosions."
Palestinian and Egyptian sources with knowledge of the latest ceasefire efforts said that mediators Qatar and Egypt have stepped up their contacts with the two warring sides, but that no date has been set yet for a new round of truce talks.
A Hamas official said that progress depends on Israel changing its position and agreeing to end the war and withdraw from Gaza. Israel says it can end the war only when Hamas is disarmed and dismantled.
Hamas refuses to lay down its arms.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Israel has agreed to a US-proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage deal, and put the onus on Hamas.
"Israel is serious in its will to reach a hostage deal and ceasefire in Gaza," he told reporters.
Austrian Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger, speaking in Jerusalem alongside her Israeli counterpart, said the humanitarian situation in Gaza was "unbearable".
"The suffering of civilians is increasingly burdening Israel's relations with Europe. A ceasefire must be agreed upon," she said, calling for the unconditional release of hostages by Hamas and for Israel to allow the uninterrupted flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
The US has proposed a 60-day ceasefire and the release of half the hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and the remains of other Palestinians.
Hamas would release the remaining hostages as part of a deal that guarantees ending the war.
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The current stage of the war began when Hamas fighters stormed into Israel on 7 October 2023, killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli figures, most of them civilians, and took 251 hostages back to Gaza in a surprise attack that led to Israel's single deadliest day.
Israel's subsequent military assault has killed more than 56,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry, displaced almost the whole 2.3 million population and plunged the enclave into a humanitarian crisis.
More than 80% of the territory is now an Israeli-militarized zone or under displacement orders, according to the UN.
Additional reporting Reuters
