80 killed in Israeli raids on the Gaza Strip, as negotiations continue in Doha.

 

The Civil Defense announced that at least 80 Palestinians, including 25 in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, were killed in Israeli airstrikes since dawn on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with US envoy Steve Witkoff to discuss the release of hostages.

Meanwhile, an Israeli negotiating delegation arrived in Doha to resume talks on reaching an agreement to release the hostages in the Gaza Strip and a ceasefire in the war that has been ongoing since October 7, 2023.

US President Donald Trump arrived in the Qatari capital on Wednesday, the second stop on his official foreign tour of the Gulf, the first of his second term.

Netanyahu's office announced that he discussed with Witkoff and his negotiating team "the issue of hostages and missing persons," three days after Hamas released Israeli soldier Idan Alexander, a US citizen, following direct negotiations between the movement and Washington in Doha.

The movement called on the Trump administration on Tuesday to "continue its efforts to stop the war."

Meanwhile, Israel continues its bombardment of Gaza, where warnings of a severe humanitarian crisis are growing, as the Jewish state has prevented aid from entering the besieged enclave since early March.

"The death toll from the ongoing Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip since dawn today (Wednesday) has reached 80, including 59 in the northern Gaza Strip," Mohammed al-Mughayyir, director of medical supplies for the Civil Defense, told AFP.

The Civil Defense had announced this morning that "at least 25 martyrs and dozens of wounded were transported as a result of the bloody Israeli airstrikes this morning in the Jabalia camp and the town of Jabalia," in the northern Gaza Strip.

In this town, AFP footage showed several women weeping next to bodies wrapped in blood-stained white shrouds.

"He's a nine-month-old baby. What did he do?" one of them cried.

Hassan Muqbil, who lost some of his relatives in the bombing, said, "There are no livable homes. There is no food or drink. Those who don't die from rockets die from hunger, and those who don't die from hunger die from a lack of medicine."

Dr. Mohammed Awad, who works in the emergency room at the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia, told AFP, "The hospital has no capacity for the wounded. There are not enough beds, medicines, or surgical or therapeutic facilities, leaving doctors unable to save many of the wounded who are dying from lack of treatment."

He added, "The bodies of the martyrs are lying on the floor in the hospital corridors after the morgue was full... The situation is catastrophic in every sense of the word."

Meanwhile, during the opening of a medical facility in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called for a "ceasefire at any cost" in the Gaza Strip.

Abbas accused Netanyahu of wanting to continue the Gaza war "for his own reasons."

Since March 2, Israel has imposed a strict blockade on the devastated Gaza Strip, preventing the entry of humanitarian aid, exacerbating shortages of food, medicine, energy, and other basic necessities for its 2.4 million residents.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni denounced the "unjustifiable" humanitarian situation in Gaza on Wednesday. Addressing Italian lawmakers, she reiterated "the need to respect international humanitarian law... Faced with a humanitarian situation in Gaza, I have no difficulty in saying that it is becoming increasingly tragic and unjustifiable."

For his part, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called for avoiding "famine" in Gaza. While affirming Berlin's support for Israel, he said, "We expect efforts to be made to provide more humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza, whose suffering we are witnessing, especially children, women, and the elderly."

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) accused Israel on Wednesday of causing a "deliberate humanitarian catastrophe" and linking aid to the forced displacement of Palestinians.

"We are currently witnessing the creation of conditions for the destruction of Palestinian lives in Gaza," the organization said in a statement.

After Israel temporarily suspended its airstrikes on the Gaza Strip on Monday, coinciding with Alexander's release, the Jewish state resumed its strikes on Tuesday, killing 28 people, according to the Civil Defense.

The Israeli shelling focused on the vicinity of the European Hospital in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. The Israeli army said it targeted a Hamas "command and control center," a term similar to the one used early Tuesday morning to justify the bombing of Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, which killed two people, including journalist Hassan Aslih, according to several sources in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army confirmed the "elimination" of Aslih, accusing him of "participating in the border breach and massacres on October 7."

The Hamas attack on southern Israel has killed 1,218 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

During the attack, 251 people were kidnapped and taken to Gaza. Fifty-seven hostages are still being held in the Palestinian enclave, including 34 who the Israeli military confirms are dead.

Meanwhile, the war has killed 52,928 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health. Of these, 2,799 have been killed since the Israeli government resumed its airstrikes and military operations on March 18, following a fragile two-month truce.