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Gaza rescuers say 12 killed in Israeli strikes; 1000s gather for rare peace event in Jerusalem
Gaza rescuers say 12 killed in Israeli strikes; 1000s gather for rare peace event in Jerusalem
by AFP Staff Writers
Gaza City, Palestinian Territories (AFP) May 11, 2025

Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli air strikes on Sunday killed at least 12 people, including young children, mostly in the south of the besieged Palestinian territory.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that Israeli fighter jets hit three tents overnight where dozens of displaced people were sheltering in the southern city of Khan Yunis.

"Eight people, including four children aged two to five and two women" were killed, Bassal said.

AFP footage showed rescuers working in the dark, evacuating a wounded baby from the site of the strike as well as two bodies, one of them in a white plastic bag and another wrapped in a blanket.

A separate strike on Khan Yunis later on Sunday killed three people, Bassal said.

One person was killed and three others wounded when a group of civilians came under attack in Gaza City, in the north, he added.

Bassal also said the Israeli military destroyed five houses with explosives in the east of Gaza City and fired artillery at the Abassa area east of Khan Yunis, without reporting any casualties.

The Israeli military did not comment on specific incidents but said its air force had struck "more than 50 terror targets across the Gaza Strip" since Saturday.

Israel resumed its offensive in Gaza on March 18 after a two-month truce in the war, triggered by Palestinian militant group Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack.

The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Sunday that at least 2,720 people have been killed since Israel resumed its campaign, bringing the overall death toll since the war broke out to 52,829.

Thousands gather for rare peace event in Jerusalem
Jerusalem (AFP) May 9, 2025 - Thousands gathered for a rare peace event in Jerusalem on Friday, with the Gaza war in its 20th month, the UN warning of humanitarian catastrophe and Palestinian militants still holding dozens of Israelis captive.

In recent days, Israel has announced plans for an expanded military campaign in Gaza entailing the "conquest" of the Palestinian territory. Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said this meant that the Gaza Strip would be "entirely destroyed".

"We cannot let the extremists on both sides that thrive over revenge, fear and hate also control our future," said Maoz Inon, 50, an Israeli entrepreneur and peace activist who was one of the main organisers of Friday's "People's Peace Summit".

"Even though they are controlling our present and reality, we must choose an alternative and create and shape an alternative future," he told AFP.

Friday's event was organised by a grouping of some 60 grassroots peace-building organisations working to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a political agreement.

At the event, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and ex-Palestinian Authority foreign minister Nasser al-Kidwa presented their proposal for peace, originally unveiled last year.

Kidwa, the nephew of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, joined via livestream from the occupied West Bank.

"Only a two-state solution is a prescription for a dramatic change in the direction of our country and of the entire region," said Olmert, a centrist predecessor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"We have to end the war and pull out of Gaza, Gaza is Palestinian... and it has to be part of a Palestinian state," he added.

He advocated for the establishment of an "internal security force" linked to the Palestinian Authority that would have "objective powers... to try and rebuild Gaza without any participation" of the militant group Hamas.

- Two-state solution -

Kidwa said the pair's peace proposal involved a two-state solution including the exchange of 4.4 percent of territory between Israel and a Palestinian state.

Under the plan unveiled last year, Kidwa and Olmert said this territory swap would involve Israel annexing land where the main Jewish settlement blocs exist in the West Bank, including some of the area around Jerusalem.

In exchange, an equally sized piece of Israeli territory would be annexed by a future Palestinian state, they said.

Their vision of a two-state solution is based on Israel's June 4, 1967 borders -- before the occupation of the West Bank.

The Olmert-Kidwa plan also advocates for shared sovereignty over Jerusalem's Old City, involving a trusteeship which would include Israel and a Palestinian state.

The current war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Of the 251 people abducted in Israel that day, 58 are still being held in Gaza, including 34 declared dead by the Israeli army.

Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 52,787 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the United Nations regards as reliable.

The territory has been under a total Israeli blockade since March 2, with UN agencies and other humanitarian organisations warning of dwindling supplies of everything from fuel and medicine to food and clean water.

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