DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip -- Israel struck houses and tents in central and southern Gaza Thursday, crushing families inside and killing at least 17 people, including 10 children and three women, local health officials said, as international pressure for a ceasefire continued to grow. On the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, French President Emmanuel Macron told France 24 his country had recognized a Palestinian state on the conviction it “is the only way to isolate Hamas,” which has proved itself able to regenerate even after many of its leaders have been killed. “Total war in Gaza is causing civilian casualties but can’t bring about the end of Hamas,” Macron said in the interview Wednesday. “Factually, it’s a failure.” He said he had been lobbying U.S. President Donald Trump to press Israel again for a ceasefire. “You cannot stop the war if there is no path to peace,” Macron added. Some Israeli ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have pushed for annexing the occupied West Bank in response to international recognition of Palestinian statehood -- a move that could effectively strip the Palestinian Authority of its civil and security powers in parts of the territory. Macron said such a move would be a red line for France, and “I think it’s also a red line for the United States of America.” Neither the White House nor the State Department responded to requests for comment on Macron’s statement. Netanyahu has said he won’t make any decisions until he returns from the U.S., where he is to address the UN General Assembly on Friday and then meet with Trump in Washington. Deadly strikes hit central and southern Gaza In the early hours Thursday, an Israeli strike hit a tent and a house in the central town of Zawaida, killing at least 12 people, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the nearby city of Deir al-Balah. Among the dead were a couple and their five of their children, along with three other children. AP footage showed the building collapsed into a pile of rubble -- the lifeless arm of one child sticking out from under a slab of concrete. Relatives said another child was still missing under the wreckage. Another strike hit a tent in Deir al-Balah, killing a girl and wounding seven other people, the hospital said. In the southern city of Khan Younis, an Israeli attack hit an apartment building, killing a man, his pregnant wife and their 10-year-old child as well as another female relative, according to Nasser Hospital, where the bodies were taken. Hunger crisis in northern Gaza worsens Israel launched another major ground operation earlier this month in Gaza City, which experts say is experiencing famine. More than 300,000 people have fled, but up to 700,000 are still there, many because they can’t afford to relocate. The food situation in the north has worsened the past two weeks, as Israel has halted aid deliveries through its crossing into northern Gaza since Sept. 12 and has increasingly rejected UN requests to bring supplies from southern Gaza into the north, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, known as OCHA, said. Many charity kitchens in the north have been forced to shut down by Israeli military operations, reducing by half the number of free meals being provided to only 59,000 meals a day, according to OCHA, which warned that Israel’s closure this week of the border crossing between the occupied West Bank and Jordan threatens to “severely undermine” its ability to deliver aid to Gaza. It said that last month a quarter of the aid destined for Gaza through the UN humanitarian effort came through the Allenby Bridge Crossing over the Jordan River, also known as the King Hussein Bridge. Israel announced the closure on Tuesday after an attack last week that killed two Israelis. Israel strikes Yemen after Houthi drone attack The Israeli military said Thursday it carried out strikes in Yemen, with dozens of aircraft targeting Houthi military command headquarters, military camps and security and intelligence facilities. The strikes came a day after a drone launched by the Houthis rebels wounded 22 people in the southern Israeli city of Eilat, a rare breach of Israel’s air defences. The Houthi Health Ministry said two people were killed and dozens wounded in the strike and that emergency workers were searching for people under rubble. One strike hit a building believed to house a leading Houthi figure in a residential area of the capital Sanaa, killing a woman and child nearby, witnesses said. The blast damaged a nearby school, causing injuries among children playing in the courtyard, they said. Netanyahu denounces leaders who have recognized a Palestinian state On Monday, France, Andorra, Belgium, Luxembourg, Malta, and Monaco announced or confirmed their recognition of a Palestinian state in the hopes of galvanizing support for a two-state solution to the Mideast conflict. Their announcements came a day after the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Portugal did the same, in defiance of Israel and the United States. Netanyahu lashed out at the idea early Thursday before heading to New York. “At the UN General Assembly I will speak our truth,” he told reporters. “I will denounce those leaders who, instead of denouncing the murderers, the rapists, the child burners, want to give them a state in the heart of the land of Israel. It will not happen.” At separate events in New York on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s lead negotiator Steve Witkoff both offered optimistic views about what Witkoff called a “Trump 21-point plan for peace” that was presented to Arab leaders Tuesday. The U.S. has not released details of the plan or said whether Israel or Hamas accepts it. The U.S., along with Egypt and Qatar, have spent months trying to broker a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release. Those efforts suffered a major setback earlier this month when Israel carried out an airstrike targeting Hamas leaders in Qatar. Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 65,000 people and wounded more than 167,000 others, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. It doesn’t say how many were civilians or combatants, but says women and children make up around half the fatalities. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government. UN agencies and many independent experts consider its figures to be the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties. Israel’s campaign was triggered when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage. Forty-eight captives remain in Gaza, around 20 of them believed by Israel to be alive, after most of the rest were freed in ceasefires or other deals. ------ By Wafaa Shurafa, David Rising And Kareem Chehayeb Associated Press writer John Leicester in Le Pecq, France, contributed reporting.
