By Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO (Reuters) -At least 22 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza on Saturday, medics said, while the Israeli military said it targeted gunmen operating from shelters and aid storages.
At least 10 people were killed in an airstrike near the municipality building in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip where people gathered to receive aid, medics said.
Casualties were being carried by foot, on rickshaws and private cars from the site of the attack to the hospital, medics said. The strike killed the head of the Hamas-run administrative committee in central Gaza, Diab Ali al-Jaru, a Hamas source said.
The Israeli military said al-Jaru, who was also the mayor of Deir Al-Balah, was the target of the strike and that he had assisted Hamas militants. Four more people were killed in a separate strike in the area.
Earlier, Israeli aircraft struck militants and weapon caches near an aid warehouse, the military said, after gunmen had fired rockets into Israel from there on Friday. Another rocket was fired from Gaza into Israel on Saturday, the military said.
A separate strike in Gaza City on a former shelter housing displaced people targeted Hamas fighters, the military said. At least seven people were killed in that attack, Palestinian medics said, including a woman and her baby.
Reuters was unable to confirm whether any of the people killed were fighters. Hamas does not disclose its casualties, and the Palestinian health ministry does not distinguish in its daily death toll between combatants and non-combatants
The Israeli military said it had taken precautions to reduce risk of harm to civilians.
JOURNALIST KILLED
A local journalist, Mohammed Baalousha who worked for Dubai Al Mashhad television was killed in a separate airstrike in Gaza City, health officials said. The military was looking into the report, a spokesperson said.
At least 137 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza in more than a year of war, according to The Committee to Protect Journalists.
The war began when the Palestinian militant group Hamas stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200, mostly civilians, people and taking more than 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel then launched an air, sea and land offensive that has killed almost 45,000 people, mostly civilians, according to authorities in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, displaced nearly the entire population and left much of the enclave in ruins.
A fresh bid by Egypt, Qatar and the United States to reach a truce has gained momentum in recent weeks.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Saturday discussed with visiting U.S. officials efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and a hostages-for prisoners deal in the Palestinian enclave, Sisi's office said.