Hamas-run Gaza’s civil defence agency said it found around 60 bodies after Israeli troops withdrew from parts of Gaza City on Friday, as heavy fighting gripped the Palestinian territory.
The grisly discovery came as international mediators pushed on with efforts to halt the war now raging into its 10th month.
US President Joe Biden said at a NATO summit in Washington on Thursday that despite problems, US diplomats and other mediators were making “progress” towards a ceasefire and stressed that “it’s time to end this war”.
The bodies were found in the Tal al-Hawa and Al-Sinaa districts, the civil defence agency said.
Israeli forces had moved into the neighbourhoods this week after ordering civilians to evacuate on Monday.
“There are still missing people under the rubble of destroyed homes, which is difficult for our crews to reach,” agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.
Residents and the agency said Israeli troops had pulled out after days of fighting with Hamas. This was not immediately confirmed by Israel.
‘Trapped’
Gaza’s health ministry had earlier reported 32 deaths in the territory, saying that the “martyrs, a majority of them children and women, were taken to hospitals overnight, because of continued massacres”.
Media linked to the territory’s Hamas rulers, whose October 7 attack sparked the war, said that Israeli forces had launched more than 70 new air strikes.
Israel’s military said it was also fighting in the Rafah area of the south, where its troops had “eliminated numerous terrorists in close-quarters combat and aerial strikes”.
But the main battleground in recent days has been Gaza City, where two weeks of fighting devastated the eastern district of Shujaiya.
The Israeli army dropped thousands of leaflets on Wednesday urging all Gaza City residents to flee what it called a “dangerous combat zone” — an area where the United Nations said up to 350,000 people were staying.
One of those newly displaced, Umm Ihab Arafat, sat with her children on a sand pile amid the rubble as the incessant hum of Israeli drones filled the sky.
“I have been displaced four times,” she said, pleading for a break for her and her children. “They are entitled to rest, their eyes are full of horror and fear.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross said “entire families are trapped and desperately seeking security.
The huge needs are beyond our capacity to respond”.
The ICRC said Gaza City residents had been instructed to move south “to areas that are overcrowded, lacking in essential services and are experiencing hostilities”.