Gaza Residents Trapped Amid Israeli Assault

Residents of Gaza City were trapped in houses and bodies lay uncollected in the streets under an intense new Israeli assault, even as Washington pushed for a peace deal at talks in Egypt and Qatar.

Hamas militants say a massive Israeli assault on Gaza City this week could wreck efforts to finally end the war just as negotiations have entered the home stretch.

Home to more than a quarter of Gaza's residents before the war, Gaza City was destroyed during the first weeks of fighting last year, but hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have returned to homes in the ruins. They have now once again been ordered out by the Israeli military.

The Gaza health ministry said it had reports of people trapped and others killed inside their houses in the Tel Al Hawa and Sabra districts of Gaza City, and rescuers could not reach them.

The Civil Emergency Service said it estimated that at least 30 people had been killed in the Tel Al-Hawa and Rimal areas and it could not recover bodies from the streets there.

Despite army instructions to residents of Gaza City that they can use two "safe routes" to head south, many residents refused to heed the order. Some posted a hashtag on social media: "We are not leaving".

Meanwhile Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Hamas was conducting Gaza ceasefire talks with Israel on behalf of the entire "Axis of Resistance" and, if a deal was reached, Hezbollah would stop its operations with no need for separate talks.

Hezbollah began firing at Israeli targets on the border in support of Palestinians after its ally Hamas launched the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that precipitated the war in Gaza.

Israel launched its assault on the Gaza Strip last year after Hamas-led militants stormed across the border fence into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages according to Israeli tallies.

Since then, Israel's assault has killed more than 38,000 according to medical authorities in Gaza.