Israeli strikes across Gaza kill more than 30 as the sides weigh the latest cease-fire proposal

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli strikes in the central Gaza Strip overnight into Tuesday killed 24 people, including women and children, according to hospital records, in deadly violence that continues to rage as Israel and Hamas weigh the latest cease-fire proposal.

The deaths in Nuseirat and Zawaida, which included 10 women and four children, came days after Hamas said cease-fire talks meant to wind down the nine-month-long war would continue even after Israel targeted the militant group’s top military commander, Mohammed Deif, whose fate remained unclear. Israel says another senior Hamas militant was killed in that strike which, according to local officials, killed 90 Palestinians, including children.

International mediators are working to push Israel and Hamas toward agreeing to a deal that would bring a halt to the devastating fighting and set free roughly 120 hostages held by the militant group in Gaza.

The strikes late Monday and early Tuesday hit four residential homes, according to emergency workers. An Associated Press journalist saw the bodies of the dead, some wrapped in blue blankets and a floral sheet, as they were ferried to Al Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah. Clouds of smoke from Israeli strikes could be seen rising above the city.

The military said it “conducted targeted raids on terror targets” in central Gaza, without elaborating. It did not immediately provide additional details on the targets.

In southern Gaza, nine people were killed in two separate strikes overnight Monday, according to medical officials and Associated Press journalists.

Four people were killed in a blast that struck a house in eastern Khan Younis while five other people were killed in a strike on a street in southernmost Rafah according to ambulance workers who transported the bodies to Nasser Hospital.

An AP journalist counted the bodies at the hospital before a funeral was held at its gates.

The military said that air force planes struck some 40 targets in Gaza over the past day, among them observation posts, Hamas military structures and explosives-rigged buildings.

The war in Gaza, which was sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, has killed more than 38,600 people, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The war has sparked a humanitarian catastrophe in the coastal Palestinian territory, displaced most of its 2.3 million population and triggered widespread hunger.

Hamas’ surprise attack killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and militants took roughly 250 people hostage. About 120 remain in captivity, with about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.

Violence has also surged in the West Bank during the war and on Tuesday a Palestinian stabbed an Israeli policeman, wounding him lightly, before another officer opened fire, killing the assailant, who was identified as a 19-year-old from Gaza.