Israeli Bombardment Hits Gaza Market, Six Dead

Dozens of wounded people were rushed to the hospital in Gaza's Deir al-Balah after an Israeli bombardment on the city's market killed six Palestinians, according to medical sources.

The current war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023 when Hamas gunmen stormed across the border into Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people and abducting about 250 hostages according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's military campaign has since leveled swathes of Gaza, driving nearly all of its 2.3 million people from their homes, giving rise to deadly hunger and disease and killing at least 40,000 people according to Palestinian health authorities.

Israel's chief military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said in a press conference that Israel was determined to bring home all the hostages - "those alive to rehabilitate and those dead to bury."

"We will not give up on any of them," he said, adding it was a moral obligation to bring them back to Israel.

Hagari declined to say how many hostages were still alive. When asked whether the hostages had been killed inadvertently by Israeli fire, he said that army forces were operating nearby and that they will investigate the precise circumstances of their deaths.

Israel retrieved the bodies of six hostages from the Gaza Strip, the military said, as negotiations continued in an effort to bring back more than 100 captives who remain in the besieged Palestinian enclave.

The return of the six bodies leaves 109 hostages still believed to be held in Gaza, around a third of whom are thought to be dead, with the fate of the others unknown.

The development came as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met officials in Egypt as he visited the region on a trip aimed at bridging differences between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas over a deal to end the fighting in Gaza and secure the return of the hostages.