At least 35 Palestinians have been killed in multiple Israeli attacks in Gaza since dawn as top negotiators prepare to restart stalled ceasefire talks.
Israeli forces killed at least 19 people in the central Gaza Strip on Friday, medical sources told Al Jazeera.
Reporting from Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said Friday was shaping up to be “another bloody day”, after a 24-hour period in which at least 71 Palestinians were killed in 34 Israeli airstrikes, according to the Gaza Government Media Office.
Abu Azzoum said the gunfire in Deir el-Balah suggested a “possible military advance by Israeli ground forces” in response to a Hamas attack on an Israeli tank in the area.
Israeli warplanes destroyed buildings in the center of the Strip, killing journalist Omar al-Diraoui at his home in az-Zawayda – the second journalist to be killed in 24 hours.
On Thursday, it was confirmed that photographer Hassan al-Qishaoui had been killed in an Israeli strike.
Following the deaths, the Gaza Government Media Office revised its number of journalists killed in the enclave since the start of the nearly 15-month war to 202.
Meanwhile, Israel continued a renewed military offensive in northern Gaza, with Abu Azzoum reporting that Israeli forces have ordered the immediate evacuation of the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya.
Israelis also woke up to an early morning attack on Friday, with the army intercepting a rocket fired from Yemen that had set off air raid sirens in Jerusalem and central Israel.
Ceasefire talks resume
As the attacks continued, ceasefire negotiations were expected to resume on Friday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he had authorized a delegation from the Mossad intelligence agency, the Shin Bet domestic security agency and the military to continue negotiations in Qatar.
Sami al-Arian, director of the Center for Islam and Global Affairs at Istanbul’s Zaim University, said Hamas may be willing to back down on one of its key demands — the immediate withdrawal of all Israeli forces from Gaza.
“There has been a lot of pressure from the mediators – especially from the Qataris and the Egyptians – to be flexible on these terms,” he told Al Jazeera.
“They have assured the resistance, Hamas and other groups, that eventually Israel will withdraw,” he said.
But Ori Goldberg, a political analyst based in Tel Aviv, told Al Jazeera that he sees no basis for optimism that a ceasefire will be reached in the talks, amid the lack of significant international pressure being exerted on both sides. .
“As far as I know, Hamas is interested in a deal, but not overly so, because its recruitment rates are increasing the longer Israel continues the genocide in Gaza,” he said.
“Of course, the Israeli public is interested in an agreement. (But) the Israeli government? Not so much – the war serves its interests,” he said.
Key mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States have been trying to secure a lasting deal in indirect talks for months.
The toll from the first three days of 2025 brings the death toll in Gaza to nearly 46,000 since Israel began its war on the enclave on October 7, 2023, following attacks led by Hamas.
The war has caused widespread destruction and displaced about 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, many of them multiple times.
Hamas-led forces killed about 1,200 people in Israel in the October 7, 2023 attacks and took about 250 prisoners.
About 100 captives are still in Gaza, although at least a third of them are believed to be dead.
