Cairo:

Two aid workers were killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza on Saturday, with Israel saying it had killed an operative who took part in the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel and who it said was employed by a US-based charity.

The first was a World Central Kitchen member, who was hit in a vehicle in Khan Younis in Southern Gaza. The Israeli military said that he had taken part in the attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel and was under surveillance but did not offer any evidence.

Reuters could not independently verify whether he took part in the attack last year.

The family of the man, Ahed Azmi Qdeih, said the Israeli allegations were false and meant to justify his unlawful killing. They said he was an engineer who dedicated his life to charitable work.

World Central Kitchen confirmed the airstrike and said it had no knowledge about an employee involved in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack.

“We are heartbroken to share that a vehicle carrying World Central Kitchen colleagues was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza,” it said in a statement posted on X. “World Central Kitchen had no knowledge that any individual in the vehicle had alleged ties to the October 7th Hamas attack.”

The charity group said it was pausing operations in Gaza, adding that it was working with incomplete information and was urgently seeking more details. The official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that three employees of the charity were killed in the strike, with medics saying a total of five people were killed.

Hamas did not immediately comment.

Later in the day, international aid agency Save the Children also said in a statement that a 39-year-old staffer, who it identified as Ahmad Faisal Isleem Al-Qadi, was killed in an airstrike in Khan Younis.

It was unclear if the two men were killed in the same strike. Israel has not immediately commented on Save the Children’s statement.

“There are not strong enough words to express the grief and outrage we feel at the loss of Ahmad in an Israeli airstrike. He was a valued member of our team and loved by all who met him,” Inger Ashing, the Save the Children chief executive, said in the statement.

In another attack in Khan Younis, medics said at least nine Palestinians were killed when an Israeli airstrike hit a car near a crowd receiving flour, a vehicle that was used by security personnel tasked with overseeing aid deliveries into Gaza.

The Israeli military says that it does not target civilians and accuses Hamas of operating from civilian facilities and using Gaza’s population as human shields, which the group denies.

At least 32 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes across the enclave overnight and into Saturday, Gaza medics said, including seven killed in a strike on a house in central Gaza City, according to Gaza officials.

New Ceasefire Efforts

Meanwhile, leaders of Hamas were expected to arrive in Cairo on Saturday for ceasefire talks with Egyptian officials, days after Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire in Lebanon, two officials of the group told Reuters.

The visit is the first since the United States announced earlier this week it would revive efforts in collaboration with Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza.

The Hamas delegation is expected to meet with Egyptian security officials to explore ways to reach a ceasefire deal with Israel that could secure the release of hostages in return for Palestinian prisoners.

Progress before now has been limited in a series of on-off talks over months.

Hamas is seeking an agreement that would end the war while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that the war will end only when Hamas is eradicated.

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 44,382 people and displaced nearly all of the enclave’s population at least once, Gaza officials say. Vast swathes of Gaza lie in ruins.

The conflict was triggered more than 13 months ago when Hamas-led operatives attacked southern Israeli communities, killing about 1,200 people and abducting over 250 hostages, according to Israeli officials.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Jerusalem:

Israeli air strikes killed dozens of people in Lebanon and Gaza Sunday, rescuers and authorities said, ahead of a US deadline for improved aid delivery to the Palestinian territory.

Another strike south of the Syrian capital Damascus killed nine people including a Hezbollah commander, a war monitor said.

Rescuers in the Gaza Strip said 13 children were among 30 people killed by Israeli strikes in the territory’s north.

The first hit a house in Jabalia, killing at least 25 people including 13 children and injuring more than 30, Gaza’s civil defence agency said.

At around 6:00 am, “there was a very huge explosion” at the Alloush family home, said relative Abdullah al-Najjar.

“When we arrived here, all the bodies were torn apart.”

Vowing to stop Hamas militants from regrouping in already ravaged north Gaza, Israel on October 6 began a major air and ground assault.

The United Nations has described the area as “under siege”, and Washington set a deadline of this coming week for Israel to get more aid in or face possible cuts to military assistance.

After the Jabalia strike, Israel’s military said it hit “infrastructure” in which militants were operating and “posed a threat” to troops.

Another strike on Gaza City’s Sabra neighbourhood killed five people, the civil defence agency said.

– Israel claims pager blasts –

In Lebanon, the health ministry said an Israeli strike on Almat village north of Beirut killed 23 people including seven children.

“Under the rubble, there are only children, elderly men and women,” Hezbollah lawmaker Raed Berro said, denying Israeli allegations that Hezbollah and weapons were embedded among civilians.

The ministry reported at least another 15 dead in strikes in the east as well as three Hezbollah-affiliated rescuers killed in the south, both areas where the Iran-backed group has a strong presence.

War monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that an Israeli strike on an apartment belonging to Hezbollah south of Damascus killed nine people, including a Hezbollah commander.

Iran’s foreign ministry condemned the strike, calling for “an arms embargo” on Israel and its “expulsion from the United Nations”.

Since late September Israel has been engaged in a two-front war after turning its focus north towards Lebanon.

Israel admitted for the first time Sunday it was behind a wave of deadly attacks on Hezbollah communications devices in September.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “greenlighted the pager operation in Lebanon” in which hundreds of devices exploded, killing nearly 40 people and wounding around 3,000, his spokesman said.

The operation preceded Israel’s ongoing air and ground campaign in Lebanon, after almost a year of tit-for-tat exchanges of fire with Hezbollah, which said it was acting in support of Hamas.

The war in Gaza erupted with Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel which resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed 43,603 people in Gaza, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which the UN considers reliable.

On Sunday, Israel’s military said it intercepted two drones approaching from the east. Pro-Iran groups in Iraq have previously said they launched attack drones at Israel.

– Aid surge ‘must happen’ –

Israel’s main military backer the United States on October 15 warned that it could withhold some of its billions of dollars in assistance unless Israel improves aid delivery to the Gaza Strip within 30 days — a deadline that expires on Wednesday.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said at the time top US officials made “clear” to Israel’s government that changes need to be made “to see that the level of assistance making it into Gaza comes back up from the very, very low levels that it is at today”.

The demand came before Tuesday’s vote for President-elect Donald Trump, who has suggested he would give freer rein to Israel.

On Saturday, a UN-backed assessment warned that famine is imminent in northern Gaza.

Fewer aid shipments were allowed into Gaza than at any time since October 2023, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report.

The alert from the Famine Review Committee warned of “an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine occurring, due to the rapidly deteriorating situation”.

Israel’s military questioned the report’s credibility, denouncing “partial, biased data and superficial sources with vested interests”.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that “humanitarian access must be granted at all times and must never become a means of warfare”.

She said that “time and again” promises of aid were not kept, and that an Israeli pledge to flood Gaza with aid “must happen, without excuses”.

The heads of UN agencies in early November described north Gaza as “under siege” and denied “basic aid and life-saving supplies”.

Arab and Muslim leaders are gathering in Saudi Arabia for a summit Monday that will focus on the wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

On Saturday, Gaza mediator Qatar said it had suspended its role in trying to broker a deal.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)