Israeli airstrikes killed 13 people and wounded dozens more in separate attacks across Gaza, medics said.
Gaza health officials said seven people died when an Israeli strike hit the municipal police headquarters in Gaza City, while several others were injured.
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Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City said it received seven bodies and at least 22 wounded people after the attack.
Gaza’s civil defence rescue agency confirmed the reported death toll.
The strikes came a day after Donald Trump’s envoy Jared Kushner concluded a regional visit without making progress toward the US president’s plan to end the war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said it had targeted Hamas commanders and other militants in an airstrike. According to the military, one of those targeted had participated in Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, the assault that set off the war.
Gaza medics said six people were killed in the strike and 14 others were wounded.
During the conflict, which began in October 2023, the seaport has become a sprawling displacement camp for Palestinian families.
Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a cafe at the seaport of Gaza City
Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defence agency, which operates under Hamas authority, said at least six people were killed, “including a child, and a large number were wounded, as a result of an Israeli raid on tents of displaced people in Gaza port”.
Witness Mohammed Alghoul said Israeli warplanes launched two missiles at the “Sweet and Bitter” cafe on the fishermen’s port west of Gaza City.
The Israeli army described the operation as a “precise aerial strike” targeting “several Hamas commanders” who it said had been planning “terror attacks against IDF troops operating in the Gaza Strip”. The army added that “steps were taken to mitigate harm to civilians”.
Kushner meetings
Hamas accused Israel of attempting to undermine Mr Trump’s plan to end the war, which Israel and Hamas agreed to last year, but said it remained committed to the agreement. The group said a child was among those killed in the attack.
Hamas did not disclose whether any of its commanders or other militants were among the dead. The group rarely confirms casualties within its own ranks.
Mr Kushner, Mr Trump’s son-in-law, departed Jerusalem yesterday after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with no breakthrough announced.
Jared Kushner, left, also met Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Jerusalem
The previous day, he had held talks in Egypt with mediators and Hamas leaders on strengthening implementation of Mr Trump’s new roadmap for Gaza. Hamas and Israel, however, continued to stand by their core demands.
Following those discussions, an official from Mr Trump’s so-called Board of Peace, which proposed the roadmap, said Israel retained its “full right of self defence”. The official also said Israeli forces would not “redeploy” until Hamas had been disarmed.
An Israeli official said Mr Netanyahu had made clear that military operations in Gaza would continue and that Israeli troops would not withdraw.
Both sides dispute sequence
At the end of last month, Mr Trump had appeared to signal a potential breakthrough when he announced that Hamas had accepted the roadmap. Under the proposal, the Palestinian militant group would dismantle its weapons in stages as Israel withdrew its forces from Gaza.
The plan also called for the Israeli military to halt its operations in the territory.
Mr Netanyahu, whose governing coalition is trailing ahead of an October election, rejected the roadmap and insisted that Israeli forces would withdraw only after Hamas had been fully disarmed.
Hamas has called on Israel to honour the ceasefire and pull its forces out of Gaza. The two sides remain divided over the order in which Mr Trump’s plan should be carried out.
“If they (Hamas) don’t follow through now on their commitment, everyone will see that they’re not genuine about peace, and then Israel will have a lot more support from the US and others to go and finish the job in the appropriate way,” Mr Kushner told Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst in an interview on Monday.
More than 1,200 Palestinians and four Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since a ceasefire was reached in October, according to Gazan health officials and the Israeli military.
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