Israeli strikes martyr 22 more Palestinians

Cairo (Reuters): Israeli forces pressed deeper into areas of the central and southern Gaza Strip as they battled Hamas fighters, while Palestinian health officials said on Thursday that Israeli strikes had killed at least 22 people across the enclave.

The new escalation comes hours after U.S. President Joe Biden pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the urgency of sealing a deal for a truce in Gaza and the release of hostages, the White House said.

Months of on-off talks on a ceasefire have circled the same issues, but Israel and Hamas have stuck firmly to their demands.

In the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, a strike on a house killed 11 people, while another killed six, including a local journalist, in a house in Al-Maghazi camp in the central Gaza Strip, medics said. Five others were killed in separate strikes in the south.

The Israeli military said its forces had intensified their operations in Deir Al-Balah, in central Gaza, and Khan Younis, in the south, dismantling dozens of military structures, locating rockets, and killing militants, over the past 24 hours.

It said forces killed 50 militants in the area of Rafah, in the far south of the enclave, over the past day.

A phone call between Biden and Netanyahu late on Wednesday followed a whirlwind trip to the region by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken that ended on Tuesday without producing a breakthrough in the 10-month-old war.

Hamas wants a deal that ends the war in Gaza and releases Israeli and foreign hostages in Gaza in return for the freedom of many Palestinians jailed by Israel. It blames Israel and the United States for the failure to conclude a deal.