Israeli missile kills six children collecting water in Gaza

Jerusalem: At least eight Palestinians, most of them children, were killed and more than a dozen were wounded in central Gaza when they went to collect water, local officials said, in an Israeli strike which the military said missed its target.

The strike hit a water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp on Sunday, killing six children and injuring 17 others, said Ahmed Abu Saifan, an emergency physician at Al-Awda Hospital.

Relatives carry the body of 13-year-old Seraje Ebrahim, who was killed in an Israeli strike on a drinking water distribution point on Sunday.Credit: AP

The Israeli military said the missile intended to hit an Islamic Jihad militant in the area but a malfunction had caused it to fall “dozens of metres from the target”.

“The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved civilians,” it said in a statement, adding that the incident was under review.

Water shortages in Gaza have worsened sharply in recent weeks, with fuel shortages causing desalination and sanitation facilities to close, making people dependent on collection centres where they can fill up their plastic containers.

Ramadan Nassar, a witness who lives in the area, told the Associated Press that about 20 children and 14 adults had been lined up to get water. He said Palestinians walk some two kilometres to fetch water from the area.

In Nuseirat, a small boy leaned over a body bag to say goodbye to a friend.

“There is no safe place,” resident Raafat Fanouna said as some people went over the rubble with sticks and bare hands.

Hours after the strike on a water distribution point, 12 people were killed by an Israeli attack on a market in Gaza City, including a prominent hospital consultant, Ahmad Qandil, Palestinian media reported. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the attack.

Gaza’s health ministry said on Sunday that more than 58,000 people had been killed since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in October 2023, with 139 people added to the death toll over the past 24 hours. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and fighters in its tally, but says more than half of those killed were women and children.

Smoke rises over the northern Gaza Strip after an Israeli bombardment on Sunday.Credit: Getty Images

Negotiations aimed at securing a ceasefire appeared to be deadlocked, with the two sides divided over the extent of an eventual Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian enclave, Palestinian and Israeli sources said at the weekend.

The indirect talks over a US proposal for a 60-day ceasefire are being held in Doha, but optimism that surfaced last week of a looming deal has largely faded, with both sides accusing each other of intransigence.

In a video posted on Telegram on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would not back down from its core demands – releasing all the hostages still in Gaza, destroying Hamas and ensuring Gaza will never again be a threat to Israel.

Late on Sunday, Washington time, Trump said he hoped talks for a ceasefire would be “straightened out” this week.

The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel, killing about 1200 people and taking 251 hostages into Gaza. At least 20 of the remaining 50 hostages there are believed to be alive.

Netanyahu and his ministers are set to discuss a plan to move hundreds of thousands of Gazans to the southern area of Rafah, in what Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has described as a new “humanitarian city” but which is likely to draw international criticism for forced displacement.

An Israeli source briefed on discussions in Israel said the plan was to establish the complex in Rafah during a ceasefire if it were reached.

On Saturday, a Palestinian source familiar with the truce talks said Hamas rejected withdrawal maps that Israel proposed because they would leave about 40 per cent of the territory under Israeli control, including all of Rafah.

Israel’s campaign against Hamas has displaced almost the entire population of more than 2 million people, but Gazans say nowhere is safe in the coastal enclave.

Early on Sunday morning, a missile hit a house in Gaza City that a family had moved to after receiving an evacuation order from their home on the southern outskirts.

“My aunt, her husband and the children are gone. What is the fault of the children who died in an ugly bloody massacre at dawn?” said Anas Matar, standing in the building’s rubble.

“They came here, and they were hit. There is no safe place in Gaza,” he said.

Reuters, AP

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