Smoke rises following an Israeli military strike in Gaza City as seen from the central Gaza Strip on October 8, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AP

Gaza City:

Hamas said on Saturday that the United States, a mediator in the Gaza truce deal, must ensure that Israel abides by the agreement to secure the release of hostages still held in the Palestinian territory.

“The United States must compel the occupation to adhere to the agreement if it truly cares about the prisoners’ (hostages) lives,” said Hazem Qassem, a spokesman for Hamas, in a statement issued after Gaza freed three captives earlier in the day.

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

Cairo:

Israeli airstrikes killed at least nine Palestinians in two separate attacks in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, taking the weekend death toll to 97, Palestinian medics said, as US and Arab mediators stepped up efforts to conclude a ceasefire deal.

Health officials said an Israeli airstrike killed five people in a house in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, while another airstrike killed four others in Jabalia in the northern edge of the enclave, where Israeli forces have been operating for three months.

There was no immediate Israeli comment on the two incidents.

Earlier on Sunday, the health ministry of Hamas-run Gaza said Israeli strikes across the territory had killed at least 88 Palestinians and wounded more than 200 others in the past 24 hours.

In Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, relatives and neighbours rushed to the Zuhd family’s house, which was struck by an Israeli airstrike late on Saturday, killing seven people, medics said. The search continued on Sunday morning for four others believed to be trapped under the rubble.

A hand belonging to one of the dead could be seen amongst the ruins, with the rest of his body buried under collapsed masonry. Three men removed dirt with their bare hands to retrieve bodies and search for possible survivors.

“Three young men, the son’s wife, and three children are still here. We retrieved this cousin of mine. Another cousin has been martyred and is now in the hospital. Approximately 11 people have been martyred here,” Ammar Zuhd, a relative, told Reuters.

ISRAEL SAYS DOZENS OF HAMAS MILITANTS KILLED

The Israeli military said in a statement on Sunday that its forces had attacked more than 100 targets across Gaza over the weekend, killing dozens of Hamas militants. It said it had also destroyed rocket launching sites that had been used to wage rocket attacks on Israel in recent days.

A renewed push is underway to reach a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas, and return Israeli hostages who were taken to Gaza, before US President-elect Donald Trump takes office on January 20.

Israeli negotiators were dispatched on Friday to resume talks in Doha brokered by Qatari and Egyptian mediators, while US President Joe Biden’s administration, which is helping to mediate, urged Hamas to agree to a deal.

Hamas said it was committed to reaching an agreement as soon as possible, but it was unclear how close the two sides were.

Israel launched its assault on Gaza in response to an October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas militants on communities in southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s military campaign, with the stated goal of eradicating Hamas, has leveled swathes of the enclave, driving most people from their homes, and has killed 45,805 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry.

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Israeli soldiers patrol near the border with Gaza on March 4, 2024 in southern Israel.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

The U.N. envoy focusing on sexual violence in conflict said in a new report Monday that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Hamas committed rape, “sexualized torture,” and other cruel treatment of women during its surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7.

There are also “reasonable grounds to believe that such violence may be ongoing,” said Pramila Patten, who visited Israel and the West Bank from Jan. 29 to Feb. 14 with a nine-member team. In the report, she said the team “found clear and convincing information” that some hostages have been subjected to the same forms of conflict-related sexual violence including rape and “sexualized torture.”

The report comes nearly five months after the Oct. 7 attacks, which left about 1,200 people dead and some 250 others taken hostage. Israel’s war against Hamas has since laid waste to the Gaza Strip, killing more than 30,000 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The U.N. says a quarter of Gaza’s 2.3 million people face starvation.

Ms. Patten’s report said the team’s visit “was neither intended nor mandated to be investigative in nature.”

She said the team was not able to meet with any victims of sexual violence “despite concerted efforts to encourage them to come forward.” However, team members held 33 meetings with Israeli institutions and conducted interviews with 34 people including survivors and witnesses of the Oct. 7 attacks, released hostages, health providers and others.

Based on the information it gathered, Patten said, “there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred during the 7 October attacks in multiple locations across Gaza periphery, including rape and gang rape, in at least three locations.”

Across various locations, she said, the team found “that several fully naked or partially naked bodies from the waist down were recovered – mostly women – with hands tied and shot multiple times, often in the head.”

While this is circumstantial, she said the pattern of undressing and restraining victims “may be indicative of some forms of sexual violence.”

At the Nova music festival and its surroundings, Patten said, “there are reasonable grounds to believe that multiple incidents of sexual violence took place with victims being subjected to rape and/or gang rape and then killed or killed while being raped.”

She said credible sources described finding murdered victims, mostly women, naked from the waist down, many shot in the head.

On Road 232 — the road to leave the festival — “credible information based on witness accounts describe an incident of the rape of two women by armed elements,” Patten said. Other reported rapes couldn’t be verified during their time in Israel.

But she said “the mission team also found a pattern of bound naked or partially naked bodies from the waist down, in some cases tied to structures including trees and poles, along Road 232.”

Ms. Patten said that in kibbutz Reim, the mission team verified the rape of a woman outside a bomb shelter and heard of other allegations of rape that could not yet be verified.

At Kibbutz Be’eri, Ms. Patten said, her team “was able to determine that at least two allegations of sexual violence widely repeated in the media, were unfounded due to either new superseding information or inconsistency in the facts gathered.”

These included a highly publicized allegation that a pregnant woman’s womb was reportedly ripped open before being killed with her fetus stabbed inside her, Ms. Patten said.