Israeli airstrikes in Gaza kill 60 people, including 22 children, Health Ministry says

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli airstrikes pounded northern and southern Gaza on Wednesday, killing at least 60 people, including almost two dozen children, according to local hospitals and health officials, a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there was ''no way'' he would halt Israel's offensive in the Palestinian territory before Hamas is defeated.

At least 50 people, including 22 children, were killed in the strikes around Jabaliya in northern Gaza, according to local hospitals and Gaza's Health Ministry. At least ten other people were killed in the southern city of Khan Younis, the European Hospital reported.

The strikes came a day after Hamas released an Israeli-American hostage, a gesture that some thought could lay the groundwork for a ceasefire.

But Netanyahu said Tuesday he would not halt Israel's war in Gaza — even if Hamas releases its hostages — dimming hopes for a truce.

The Israeli military refused to comment on the strikes, but had warned residents of Jabaliya to evacuate late Tuesday night due to militant infrastructure in the area, including rocket launchers.

In Jabaliya, rescue workers smashed through collapsed concrete slabs using hand tools, lit only by the light of cellphone cameras, to remove bodies of some of the children who were killed.

Israel threatens to escalate operations in Gaza

In comments released by Netanyahu's office Tuesday, the prime minister said Israeli forces were just days away from a promised escalation of force and would enter Gaza ''with great strength to complete the mission. ... It means destroying Hamas.''

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in a 2023 intrusion into southern Israel. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed over 52,800 Palestinians, many of them women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were combatants or civilians.

Israel's offensive has obliterated vast swathes of Gaza's urban landscape and displaced 90% of the population, often multiple times.

The strikes came amid hopes that Trump's visit to the Middle East could usher in a ceasefire deal or renewal of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

France condemns Israeli blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza

International food security experts issued a stern warning earlier this week that the Gaza Strip will likely fall into famine if Israel doesn't lift its blockade and stop its military campaign.

French President Emmanuel Macron strongly denounced Netanyahu's decision to block aid from entering Gaza as ''a disgrace'' that has caused a major humanitarian crisis.

''I say it forcefully, what Benjamin Netanyahu's government is doing today is unacceptable,'' Macron said Tuesday evening on TF1 national television. ''There's no medicine. We can't get the wounded out. Doctors can't get in. What he's doing is a disgrace. It's a disgrace.''

Macron, who visited injured Palestinians in El Arish hospital in Egypt last month, called for the reopening of the Gaza border to humanitarian convoys. ''Then, yes, we must fight to demilitarize Hamas, free the hostages and build a political solution,'' he said.

Nearly half a million Palestinians are facing possible starvation, living at ''catastrophic'' levels of hunger, while 1 million others can barely get enough food, according to findings by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a leading international authority on the severity of hunger crises.

Israel has banned all food, shelter, medicine and any other goods from entering the Palestinian territory for the past 10 weeks, even as it carries out waves of airstrikes and ground operations.

Gaza's population of around 2.3 million people relies almost entirely on outside aid to survive, because Israel's 19-month-old military campaign has wiped away most capacity to produce food inside the territory.

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Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Fatma Khaled contributed from Cairo and Sylvie Corbet contributed from Paris.