Israel Resumes Gaza Strikes: Over 2,000 Palestinians Killed

Egypt Struggles to Get Ceasefire Restarted

With the 72-hour ceasefire in the Gaza Strip expiring overnight, Israel has resumed attacks, and the death toll is once again on the rise among Palestinian civilians, with at least 10 killed since the ceasefire collapsed.

The death toll in Gaza has now passed 2,000, over 80% of them civilians and over 20% of them children under the age of 18. 10,000 others have been wounded in the attacks. The Israeli toll remains 67, 64 of them soldiers.

So far, the Cairo peace talks have not halted, though hawkish Israeli Economy Minister Naftali Bennett is pushing for the Israeli government to withdraw the negotiating team and further escalate the war.

Egypt, which is mediating the peace talks, is also trying to broker a new ceasefire to enable the continuation of the talks, though so far they don’t appear to be having any success.

By Saturday night, reports were virtually unchanged from mid-week, with both sides still “far apart” and diplomats saying the resumption of violence was further stalling the effort to get peace talks restarted.

Since the fighting resumed mortars have been fired out of Gaza, and Israeli officials reported two injuries. Israel has launched numerous airstrikes and shellings against Gaza, killing a number of civilians, including a 10-year-old boy in Gaza City.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.