Sixteen Palestinians, including ten children and six adults, have been killed in an Israeli airstrike while queuing for nutritional supplements in front of a clinic in central Gaza, a hospital says.
Verified video footage from the strike in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip showed the bodies of women and children lying in pools of blood amid dust and screaming. The strike happened just outside the Altayara health clinic run by US-based Project HOPE.
One clip showed several motionless children lying on a donkey cart.
“She didn't do anything, she was innocent, I swear. Her dream was for the war to end and that they announce it today, to go back to school," said Samah al-Nouri, sitting by the body of her daughter who was killed in the blast.
"She was only getting treatment in a medical facility. Why did they kill them?" she said, with other bodies laid out around her at a nearby hospital.
Project Hope said Thursday morning’s strikes happened as Palestinians gathered outside its health clinic awaiting its opening to receive treatment for malnutrition, infections and chronic illnesses. They said the attack was a blatant violation of international law.
"Horrified and heartbroken cannot properly communicate how we feel anymore," the aid group said in a statement.
Israel's military said it had struck a militant who took part in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war.
It said it was aware of reports regarding a number of injured bystanders and that the incident was under review.
It comes as ceasefire talks dragged on with the prospect of even a temporary 60-day truce looking unlikely this week.
A senior Israeli official said on Wednesday that an agreement was not likely to be secured for another one or two weeks.
However, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday he was hopeful of a deal.
"I think we're closer, and I think perhaps we're closer than we've been in quite a while," Rubio told reporters at the ASEAN summit in Malaysia.
US President Donald Trump met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week to discuss the situation in Gaza.
Netanyahu said that if the two sides reach agreements on the US 60-day truce plan, Israel will begin negotiations on a permanent ceasefire.
In a statement from Washington, he reiterated Israel's terms for ending the war, including Hamas disarming and no longer ruling Gaza.
Hamas has rejected calls to lay down its weapons.
“If this can be achieved through negotiations — that's good. If it's not achieved through 60-day negotiations then we will achieve it by other means, by use of force," Netanyahu said.
Repeated attacks by Israeli forces in recent weeks have killed hundreds of Gazans, many of them civilians, and injured thousands, according to local health authorities, putting an enormous strain on the enclave's few remaining hospitals.
Dwindling fuel supplies risk further disruption in the semi-functioning hospitals, including to incubators at the neonatal unit of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, doctors there said.
"We are forced to place four, five or sometimes three premature babies in one incubator," said Dr Mohammed Abu Selmia, the hospital director, adding that premature babies were now in a critical condition.
An Israeli military official said that fuel destined for hospitals and other humanitarian facilities was let into the enclave on Wednesday and on Thursday.
However, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said that far more fuel was needed to keep essential life-saving and life-sustaining services operating.
A Palestinian official said the talks in Qatar were in crisis and that issues under dispute, including whether Israel would continue to occupy parts of Gaza after a ceasefire, had yet to be resolved.
The two sides previously agreed a ceasefire in January but it did not lead to a deal on ending the war and Israel resumed its military assault two months later, stopping all aid supplies into Gaza for 11 weeks and telling civilians to leave the north of the tiny territory.
Israel's military campaign in Gaza has now killed more than 57,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities. It has destroyed swathes of the territory and driven most Gazans from their homes.
The Hamas attack on Israeli border communities that triggered the war in 2023 killed around 1,200 people and the militant group seized 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. At least 20 are believed to still be alive.
There has also been repeated violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. An Israeli man was killed at a shopping centre in the territory on Thursday by two Palestinian militants, who were then shot dead, police said.
In a separate incident, a Palestinian man was shot dead after he stabbed and injured a soldier, the army said.
