By International Webdesk SCN
Israeli strikes southern, central Gaza to put more pressure on Hamas
GAZA: Israel struck the southern and central Gaza Strip on Monday to put more pressure on Hamas, following a weekend strike targeting the militant group’s leadership, which killed scores of Palestinians who had sought shelter in a makeshift camp.
Two days after the Israeli strike turned a crowded swathe of Mawasi near the Mediterranean coast into a charred wasteland littered with burning cars and mangled bodies, displaced survivors said they had no idea where they should go next.
“Those moments as the ground shook underneath my feet and the dust and sand rose to the sky and I saw dismembered bodies – was like nothing I have seen in my life,” said Aya Mohammad, 30, a market seller in Mawasi, reached by mobile text message.
“Where to go is what everybody asks, and no one has the answer.”
Mawasi on the western outskirts of Khan Younis has been sheltering hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled to the area after Israel declared it a safe zone. Israel said its strike there on Saturday targeted Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif, an architect of the Oct. 7 assault on Israeli towns and villages that triggered the Gaza war.
The military said it struck an open area, with several buildings and sheds, adding it was a compound run by Hamas and not a tented camp.
Palestinian officials say at least 90 people were killed on Saturday and many hundreds wounded. Reuters journalists at the scene filmed carnage, with residents carrying the wounded and dead amid flames and smoke.
Hamas and Palestinian rivals Fatah to meet in Beijing: officials
Senior officials from rival Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah have agreed to meet in Beijing this month in a renewed bid for reconciliation, AFP reports.
The Hamas delegation is to be headed by its Qatar-based political chief Ismail Haniyeh, while the Fatah representation will be led by deputy head Mahmud Alul, Fatah sources said.
Hamas had no immediate comment.
The representatives are to meet with Chinese officials in Beijing on July 20 and July 21, according to Fatah’s central committee deputy secretary general Sabri Saidam.
Before that, a meeting of the two groups could take place, he added.
The goal, said Saidam, “is to end the state of division with a commitment to past agreements and agreeing on a relationship between the Palestinian groups in the next stage”.