Israel intensified its bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing at least 70 Palestinians overnight, while ceasefire deal talks remain stalled.
In Rafah, two Palestinians were killed while waiting to receive aid, while an Israeli airstrike on Shuja’iyya, east of Gaza City, killed two more and left several others injured.
In the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, one civilian was killed and several were wounded after Israeli forces targeted a group of people waiting for aid north of the camp.
In a separate strike, a child was killed when Israeli forces fired on a crowd in the Bureij refugee camp. Meanwhile, Israeli shelling on tents sheltering displaced families near Yarmouk Street in Gaza City killed two more Palestinians, including an infant, and wounded several others.
Israel has demanded ordered nearly one million people to leave Gaza City despite severe overcrowding and unsafe conditions - mainly as a result of ongoing Israeli strikes - further south in the territory.
The evacuation order has caused outrage worldwide amid the ongoing genocide.
Egypt 'not closing door' on ceasefire efforts despite Israeli aggression
Despite Israel's recent strike on Qatar, a key mediator in Gaza ceasefire talks, and its ongoing attacks on Gaza, an Egyptian official told The New Arab's sister site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that Cairo "will not close the door" on ceasefire negotiations.
He described mediation as a "necessary option to spare civilians further catastrophe" but also warned that "Egypt will not allow its efforts to become a cover for Israel to continue its aggressions".
Israeli leaders have been celebrating the strike on Doha, with Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana posting a video of the strike, calling it "a message to the entire Middle East".
Egyptian diplomatic sources described the attack as a "dangerous escalation", warning that any direct engagement with Israeli delegations has become highly sensitive.
"Cairo will not accept business as usual diplomacy" while Israel faces accusations of committing "an international crime against an allied Arab state," they added.
Another senior Egyptian source said that while Egypt "does not choose its partners in Israel, it chooses how and when to engage with them," warning that if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues his current policies, Cairo’s cooperation will remain "strictly limited to safeguarding Egyptian national security".
Former Egyptian deputy foreign minister Mohamed Hegazy condemned Israel’s strike on Doha as "a blatant violation of the sovereignty of a Gulf Cooperation Council state", calling for "unequivocal condemnation at the UN Security Council" and urging Arab states to launch a coordinated diplomatic campaign.
WHO issues dire warning over Gaza evacuation
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has issued a stark warning regarding Israel’s evacuation orders for Gaza City, where nearly one million Palestinians live. Israeli forces have ordered residents to leave as the army intensifies deadly and indiscriminate attacks aimed at seizing the city.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the order as "unfeasible" and said that the so-called "humanitarian zone" in southern Gaza lacks the space, infrastructure, and medical capacity to accommodate the displaced.
"The zone has neither the size nor scale of services to support those already there, let alone new arrivals," he said.
Tedros pointed out that half of the functioning hospitals left in the Gaza Strip were in Gaza City, and the territory's "crippled health system cannot afford to lose any of these remaining facilities".
He urged the international community to "act", saying that, in Gaza, "this catastrophe is human-made, and the responsibility rests with us all".
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed over 64,656 Palestinians and wounded 163,503 since October 2023, according to health ministry figures, while thousands of uncounted victims are believed to be trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings.