Gaza civil defence says Israel Khan Yunis assault kills 300 since July 22

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories — Gaza's civil defence agency said Tuesday that an Israeli operation in and around the territory's second city of Khan Yunis has killed about 300 people since it began on July 22.

"Since the beginning of the Israeli ground invasion of the eastern part of Khan Yunis province, the civil defence and medical teams have recovered approximately 300 bodies of martyrs, many of them decomposed," agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

The Hamas attack on southern Israel that started the war resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel's retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,400 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which does not provide details on civilian and militant deaths.

Fighting has meanwhile raged on unabated in the besieged Gaza Strip, with the territory's civil defence agency saying on Tuesday that around 300 people had been killed in the southern city of Khan Yunis during an Israeli operation there that began on July 22.

The military meanwhile said it had completed its operation in the Khan Yunis area, which had seen heavy fighting earlier this year, and had killed "over 150 terrorists".

Hamas on Monday again accused Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu of delaying a Gaza ceasefire and hostage exchange deal.

It said he had set new conditions that mark a "retreat" from an earlier draft.

The statement came after Egyptian, Qatari and US mediators met with Israeli negotiators in Rome on Sunday as international pressure for a ceasefire grows after more than nine months of war.

"We in the Hamas movement have listened to the mediators regarding what transpired recently in the Rome meeting, concerning the ceasefire negotiations and prisoner exchange," the group said in a statement.

"It is clear from what the mediators conveyed that Netanyahu has returned to his strategy of procrastination, stalling, and evading reaching an agreement by setting new conditions and demands," it added.

The new terms, Hamas said, represent "a retreat" from an earlier draft communicated by mediators.

US President Joe Biden outlined in late May what he called an Israeli initiative for a truce and hostage release deal, and this has become the basis for subsequent talks.

A source with knowledge of the talks said last week that Israel's return with extra demands was "a recurring theme" in the process and Israel had "moved the goalposts" with three new requests.

'Sabotage' 

Hamas officials have previously accused Netanyahu of hindering negotiations, and Israelis have made similar allegations. Israeli demonstrators, who have taken to the streets sometimes in the tens of thousands to demand a hostage-release deal, have also accused the prime minister of prolonging the war.

Far-right members of Netanyahu's ruling coalition oppose any truce.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum campaign group, which seeks the return of hostages still held by militants in Gaza, alleged "deliberate sabotage" of the efforts, after the arrival of Israeli negotiators in Qatar was postponed from Thursday into this week.

Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been involved in months of mediation efforts aimed at ending the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.