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At least 70 killed in single strike on Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza, with death toll expected to climb
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Gaza.
Dozens of Palestinians have been killed overnight as Israeli strikes on Gaza continued into Christmas Day.
Israeli strikes have killed 20,424 Palestinians since 7 October, the health ministry in Gaza said on Sunday after one of the deadliest 24 hours in the conflict, not including those killed in the latest strikes. Thousands more are believed to be buried under rubble and tens of thousands more have been wounded.
“People in Gaza haven’t experienced hunger until this war,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said, warning of a “man-made famine” in Gaza as Israel continues its attacks across the strip. In a tweet on Sunday, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees added: “Now it is widespread & WFP warns about a looming famine. That would be nothing less than a man-made famine & a stain in our common humanity. We cannot let it happen.”
Islamic Jihad, a smaller militant group allied to Hamas, said a delegation led by its exiled leader Ziad al-Nakhlala was in Cairo on Sunday. His arrival followed talks attended by Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in recent days. The militant groups have so far said they will not discuss any release of hostages unless Israel ends its war in Gaza, while the Israelis say they are willing to discuss only a temporary pause in fighting.
Israeli media reported on Sunday that Egypt had put forward to Hamas a three-stage deal that would take several weeks and ultimately end with the release of all hostages and the cessation of hostilities and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. “On the surface, the plan appears to be a formula that both parties would be pleased to reject,” Haaretz newspaper wrote.
The Israeli military said on Sunday 10 of its soldiers had been killed in the past day, after five killed the previous day, its worst two-day losses since early November. The deaths bring the total number of IDF soldiers killed in Gaza since the ground assault began on 27 October to 154.
Israel’s war on Gaza was enacting a “very heavy price” on Israeli soldiers, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, told his cabinet on Sunday on Sunday. “This is a difficult morning, after a very difficult day of fighting in Gaza,” Netanyahu said. “The war is exacting a very heavy cost from us; however we have no choice [but] to continue to fight.”
Thousands of Moroccans took to the streets in Rabat on Sunday in opposition against Israel’s war on Gaza and Morocco’s normalization with Israel. The crowd in Rabat of about 10,000 people denounced what protest leaders called a “war of extermination,” Agence France-Presse reports.
A Qatari Armed Forces aircraft carrying 14 tons of aid for Palestinians in Gaza has arrived in El Arish, Egypt on Sunday, the Qatari state news agency QNA announced. Sunday’s aid delivery brings the total number of Qatari aircrafts sent to Gaza to 50, with a total of 1,548 tons of aid.
Four trucks carrying 33 tons of aid from UNRWA and the World Food Programme have made its way into Gaza, UNRWA reported on Sunday. The aid trucks consists of 84 packages of biscuits and 16 pallets of easy-to-open food cans.
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