Saturday, March 29, 2025
Gaza City, October 5, 2025 — At least 70 people, including seven children aged between two months and eight years, were killed in a powerful Israeli airstrike on Gaza on Saturday, escalating the humanitarian crisis despite international appeals for restraint.
According to Palestinian health officials and Al Jazeera, Israeli forces bombed multiple areas across the Gaza Strip, including the Tuffah neighborhood and a displacement camp in Al-Mawasi, where two children were killed and eight others injured. The bombardment forced more than one million civilians to flee their homes toward southern Gaza, deepening the region’s displacement crisis.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the military offensive would continue until Hamas fully accepts all terms of the U.S.-backed 21-point peace plan announced by President Donald Trump.
While Hamas has indicated conditional acceptance of the plan — including agreement on a prisoner swap involving 2,000 Palestinian detainees for Israeli hostages — it remains unclear whether the group will accept demilitarization, a key Israeli demand.
Netanyahu insisted that “operations will not cease until every condition is met.”
President Donald Trump has repeatedly urged Israel to scale back its offensive, calling for an immediate ceasefire tied to his peace roadmap. A White House official confirmed that Trump dispatched Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Cairo to work on hostage release arrangements and prisoner exchange mechanisms.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry will act as mediator, hosting both Israeli and Hamas delegations for direct talks.
The Gaza Health Ministry reported that over one million people have been uprooted by Israel’s ground and aerial operations.
The latest strike in Tuffah alone killed 18 people.
Civil defense teams continue to recover bodies from rubble, while hospitals remain overwhelmed by casualties and shortages of medicine.
Although Hamas has signaled willingness to engage with the Trump peace plan, Israel’s refusal to halt strikes until all demands are satisfied leaves the ceasefire timeline uncertain. With civilian deaths mounting daily, international pressure is expected to intensify on both parties ahead of the Cairo peace talks scheduled for this week.
