Hamas condemns Israel’s ‘horrific massacre’ in Gaza City

Hamas has strongly condemned Israel’s “horrific massacre” of Palestinian children and women as the regime continues its airstrikes on the Gaza Strip despite a US-brokered ceasefire.

An Israeli airstrike killed at least seven Palestinians, including two women in Gaza City on Saturday, according to health officials.

Medics said 15 people, including children, were also wounded when the airstrike targeted a large tent encampment in the heart of Gaza City.

The attack came as mediators restarted talks in the Egyptian capital, Cairo with Hamas and other factions over safeguarding a ceasefire agreement.

In a statement shared on Telegram, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said the Tel Aviv regime “committed a horrific massacre against children and women … in a continued escalation of its war of extermination against civilians.”

Referring to the talks in Cairo, Qassem said that “the occupation is working to undermine and destroy the agreement” by continuing its attack on the territory.

A ceasefire brokered by US President Donald Trump has failed to halt Israeli attacks and left Israel in control of more than half the territory.

Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed at least 950 people and injured 2,935 since the ceasefire began in October, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

On Saturday, Egypt began hosting a new round of truce talks with leaders from Hamas and other Palestinian factions expected to last for a few days, Hamas and other sources close to the negotiation said.

Qassem said the talks would focus on Israel’s implementation of the first phase, and reaching common ground on proceeding toward the second phase.

He added that Hamas would also be discussing how to “halt the repeated Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip and establish appropriate mechanisms for entering the second phase of the agreement”.

‘Ceasefire is a joke’: Israeli troops recount killings in Gaza based on ‘a hunch’

Israeli soldiers say unclear rules of engagement and shifting frontlines have made the Gaza ceasefire effectively meaningless on the ground.

The first phase of the ceasefire involved the release of the last Israeli hostages held in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

A transition to the second phase of the ceasefire, which was supposed to involve a gradual withdrawal of the Israeli military and the disarmament of Hamas, has been stalled for months.

Earlier, Husam Badran, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, told Al Jazeera that the resistance group would not surrender its weapons right now, but that it would commit to a future Palestinian police force, operating under a technocratic committee that administers Gaza, and being the only organization to have weapons openly.

“We are not talking about handing them over; we are talking about, at least, weapons not being visible except for the official weapons of the Palestinian police,” said Badran.

“The details of this matter will be discussed within a national framework,” he added.

At least 73,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023, according to Gaza health authorities.

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