Palestinians retrieved dozens of bodies from the rubble of Gaza homes yesterday during a brief truce in the fighting, as top diplomats huddled in Paris to discuss a long-term ceasefire.
With a fragile 12-hour humanitarian truce between Israel and Hamas in place, ambulances sped along roads to neighborhoods that have been too dangerous to enter for days.
Halfway through the truce, they had already found the bodies of 76 people in the rubble across Gaza, pushing the death toll beyond 950 Palestinians killed in the coastal enclave since the conflict began on July 8.
Photo: AFP
On the Israeli side, 37 soldiers have been killed, along with two Israeli civilians and a Thai foreign worker.
Palestinians ventured onto Gaza’s streets after the truce took effect, some eager to check on homes they had fled, others to stock up on food and other items while it was still safe to do so.
In northern Beit Hanun, even the hospital was badly damaged by shelling, and correspondents came across the charred body of a paramedic as emergency workers combed the debris for more dead.
Trails of blood on the ground were crossed by Israeli tank tracks and there were holes where it appeared Israeli forces had been searching for Hamas tunnels.
There were similar scenes in Shejaiya, which has been subjected to days of relentless Israeli tank fire. Stiff bodies lay on the floor of a room in one building, one caked in dried blood, all of them covered in dust.
To the east of southern Khan Yunis, residents hesitated to enter the Khuzaa neighborhood, saying Israeli forces remained inside the border area.
Hamas said it and other militant groups in Gaza had reached “national consensus” for the truce. Israel later confirmed it would observe what it called “a humanitarian window” in Gaza.
The brief lull came after US Secretary of State John Kerry’s proposal for a seven-day truce during which the two sides would negotiate a longer-term deal was rejected by Israel’s security Cabinet on Friday night.
Rights groups say about 80 percent of the casualties so far have been civilians, and the UN agency for children UNICEF said on Friday that 192 children had been killed during the conflict.
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