Israeli strikes on Gaza kill 18 as hopes rise for ceasefire and hostage release

Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip killed at least 18 people overnight, including six women and four children, health officials said on Tuesday, as Israel and Hamas appeared to be closing in on a ceasefire deal to end the 15-month war and release dozens of hostages.

Officials have expressed mounting optimism that they can conclude an agreement in the coming days after more than a year of talks that have repeatedly stalled.

Meanwhile, Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels fired a missile at central Israel, setting off sirens and sending people fleeing to shelters without causing any casualties.

Police said several homes were damaged outside Jerusalem and released a photo of a missile casing that had crashed into a roof.

Two strikes in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah killed two women and their four children, who ranged in age from one month to nine years old. One of the women was pregnant and the baby did not survive, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the bodies were taken.

Another 12 people were killed in two strikes on the southern city of Khan Younis, according to the European Hospital.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Israel says it only targets militants and accuses them of hiding among civilians in shelters and tent camps for the displaced.

Israel and Hamas have come under renewed pressure to halt the conflict in the lead-up to the January 20 inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump, whose Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, recently joined US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators in the Gulf country’s capital, Doha.

The phased deal would be based on a framework laid out by President Joe Biden in May and endorsed by the UN Security Council.

In the first phase, Hamas would release dozens of the most vulnerable hostages seized in the attack on October 7 2023 that triggered the war, in exchange for dozens of Palestinian prisoners as Israeli forces pull back from population centres. At least some Palestinians would be allowed to return to their homes and there would be a surge of humanitarian aid.

In the second phase, Hamas says it would release the remaining hostages in exchange for a large number of prisoners, a full Israeli withdrawal and a lasting ceasefire.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to keep fighting until Hamas’s military and governing capabilities have been destroyed and it no longer poses a threat.

The gap between the two sides would be negotiated during the first phase.

Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people in the October 7 attack and abducted another 250. Some 100 hostages are still being held inside the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military believes at least a third and up to half of them are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were combatants. The Israeli military says it has killed more than 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.

The offensive has reduced large areas of the territory to rubble and displaced around 90% of the Gaza Strip’s population of 2.3 million, with hundreds of thousands packed into tent camps along the coast where hunger is widespread.

The war has rippled across the region, igniting more than a year of fighting between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants that ended with a tense ceasefire in November. Israel has also traded direct fire with Iran, which backs Hamas, Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis.

The Israeli military said it made several attempts to intercept the missile launched from Yemen early on Tuesday and that “the missile was likely intercepted”. It said an earlier missile fired from Yemen was also intercepted.

The Houthis, who captured Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, and much of the country’s north in 2014, have launched a series of missile and drone attacks on Israel and have attacked international shipping in the Red Sea.

The Houthis say they are fighting in solidarity with the Palestinians, but the vast majority of the targeted ships have no connection to the conflict.