Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 61 in 48 hours as UN pursues vaccinations

Israeli military strikes across the Palestinian Gaza Strip killed at least 61 people in the space of 48 hours, medics said on Saturday, as Israeli forces battled Hamas-led militants in the territory.
Eleven months into the war, numerous rounds of diplomacy have so far failed to clinch a ceasefire deal to end the conflict and bring the release of Israeli and foreign hostages held in Gaza.
Air strikes on two former schools that were housing displaced people, one in Gaza City and one in Jabalia, killed at least 12 people, Palestinian medics said.
The Israeli military said the strikes targeted Hamas gunmen who were operating in the compound. Five more people were killed in a strike on a house in Gaza City, Palestinian medics said, with a total of 28 people killed on Saturday.
The armed wings of the Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah groups said they had fought Israeli troops across Gaza with anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs, and in some incidents detonated bombs to target tanks and other army vehicles.
The two warring sides continued to blame one another for the failure of mediators, including Qatar, Egypt and the United States, to broker a ceasefire. The US is preparing to present a new proposal, but the prospects of a breakthrough appear slim as gaps between the sides remain wide.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken plans to travel to the UK on Monday, the US state department said on Saturday, a week after Britain suspended some arms export licences with Israel over equipment that could be used in the war in Gaza.
In the trip slated to go through Tuesday, Blinken will open the US-UK strategic dialogue, “reaffirming our special relationship,” a state department spokesperson, said.
Blinken will also meet senior government officials to discuss issues including the Indo-Pacific, the Aukus defence pact between the US, Australia, Britain and the Middle East, and collective efforts to support Ukraine in the war against Russia.
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Britain said on September 2nd that it was immediately suspending 30 of its 350 arms export licences with Israel, saying there was a risk such equipment might be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law in Israel’s war with Hamas in the densely populated Palestinian enclave of Gaza.
The administration of President Joe Biden and vice-president Kamala Harris, who is running to succeed him, is under pressure from critics of the war to suspend some arms deliveries to Israel, Washington’s closest Middle East ally. A US official said in July the Biden administration would resume shipping 500-pound bombs to Israel but would continue to hold back on supplying 2,000-pound bombs over concerns about their use in Gaza.
CIA director William Burns, chief US negotiator for an end to the war in Gaza, said in London on Saturday that a more detailed ceasefire proposal would be made in the coming days.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Israelis joined protests in Tel Aviv and other cities, demanding prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his government make a deal under which the remaining 101 hostages would be released.
The killing of six hostages last week triggered an outpouring of anger and grief that led to mass protests. The hostages had been shot in the head by Hamas, Israel said, not long before their bodies were found by troops in a Gaza tunnel last Saturday.
“They could have been saved,” said Einav Zangauker, whose 24-year-old son Matan had been abducted by militants from his home in Nir Oz kibbutz. “As long as Netanyahu is in power, we will keep getting the hostages back in body bags.”
On Thursday, Mr Blinken said it was incumbent on both Israel and Hamas, which seized control of Gaza almost two decades ago and was responsible for the October 7th killing spree in Israel that triggered the war, to make concessions to reach a deal.
On Saturday, senior Hamas official Hossam Badran said the group had made no new demands and remained committed to a July 2nd proposal put forward by the US, accusing Netanyahu of attaching new conditions that would not end the war.
Netanyahu says it was Hamas that introduced unacceptable conditions.
Despite the deadlock, the United Nations, in collaboration with local health authorities, has pursued a campaign to vaccinate 640,000 children in Gaza after its first polio case in about 25 years. Limited pauses in the fighting have allowed the campaign to proceed.
UN officials said they were making progress, having reached more than half of the children needing the drops in the first two stages in the southern and central Gaza Strip.
On Sunday, the campaign will move to the northern Gaza Strip. A second round of vaccination will be required four weeks after the first.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered by the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and in which about 250 hostages were taken, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent assault on the enclave has killed more than 40,900 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while also displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million.
The Palestinian health ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants in its casualty reports, but health officials say most the fatalities have been civilians.
Israel, which has lost 340 soldiers in Gaza, says at least a third of the Palestinian dead are fighters. – Reuters