World News Dozens of bodies found as Israel scales back in Gaza Blog

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Israeli forces withdrew from parts of Gaza City overnight after a week-long fierce offensive that met resistance from Hamas. Dozens of people were killed and homes and streets destroyed in the Palestinian enclave’s largest urban area, rescue workers said.

The offensive came 10 months after Israel began its campaign to eliminate Hamas militants, while U.S.-backed mediators tried to finalize a peace deal that would include the release of the last hostages kidnapped by Hamas militants during their Oct. 7 cross-border rampage.

The Gaza Civil Emergency Service said teams recovered about 60 bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces from the Tel Al-Hawa area and the outskirts of the Sabra neighborhood in Gaza City last week.

While tanks withdrew from some areas, Israeli snipers and tanks continued to control some high ground, residents and rescue teams said, warning residents against attempting to return.

“There are bodies scattered on the streets, dismembered bodies, there are the bodies of entire families, and there are also the bodies in an entire family’s house, which is completely burned down,” Mahmoud Basal, spokesman for Gaza’s civil defense, said on Friday in comments picked up by media in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military said it found drones and other weapons in a so-called Hamas combat complex at the former UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City and evacuated civilians from the area before the attack.

“The troops engaged in close combat with terrorist cells entrenched inside the UNRWA compound,” the statement said. In addition, an important Hamas tunnel and a weapons production facility under a university building were discovered nearby.

The armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they attacked Israeli forces with anti-tank missiles and mortar shells, killing or wounding many people. The Israeli army has not commented on these claims.

Gaza City, which was home to more than a quarter of Gaza’s population before the war, was largely razed to the ground by the end of 2023, but hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had returned to their homes in the ruins before Israel again ordered them to vacate.

Dozens of residents returned on Friday to survey the damage after civil emergency teams put out fires in the early hours. Reuters images showed destroyed streets and buildings, including the former UNRWA headquarters. Bodies wrapped in white shrouds bearing the names of the dead women and men lay on the floor of Al-Ahli hospital.

In Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, four employees of the Al-Khair Foundation, a Muslim NGO based in Britain and Turkey, were killed in an airstrike on an aid distribution center, according to Hamas media.

Arab mediators, with US support, are trying to reach a ceasefire that would see the release of Israelis held captive by Hamas in return for the release of numerous Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

On Friday, a senior Hamas official accused Israel of failing to capitalize on the momentum built when the Islamist faction dropped a key demand from the US-drafted ceasefire offer a week ago to pave the way for an agreement.

“Israel has not taken a clear position on Hamas’ proposal,” the official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters, accusing Israel of “stalling and wasting time.”

There was initially no comment from Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that he remained committed to the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip and accused Hamas of making demands that ran counter to this framework, without however saying what these demands were.

Two Egyptian sources said on Thursday that progress had been made in the talks, but that security arrangements and ceasefire guarantees were still being worked on.

Part of the discussion was an electronic surveillance system along the Gaza-Egypt border that could enable Israel to withdraw troops from the area, say two Egyptian sources and a third source familiar with the matter.

Israel dismissed the report as “absolute falsehood” and said Netanyahu insisted that Israel remain in the area.

On October 7, Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and took over 250 hostages, according to Israeli sources. Since then, Israeli forces have killed over 38,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.

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