Israel launches new Gaza strikes after weekend attack kills scores in safe zone

CAIRO, July 15 (Agencies): Israel struck the southern and central Gaza Strip on Monday to put more pressure on Hamas, following a weekend strike targeting the militant group's leadership which killed scores of Palestinians camped in a designated "safe zone".
Israel hammered the Gaza Strip from the air, sea and land as the war in the Palestinian territory showed no sign of abating, with Hamas saying it was pulling out of truce talks.
Shells rained down on the neighbourhoods of Tal Al-Hawa, Sheikh Ajlin and Al-Sabra in Gaza City, AFP correspondents reported, while eyewitnesses said the Israeli army had shelled the Al-Mughraqa area and the northern outskirts of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
Two days after the Israeli strike turned a crowded swathe of Mawasi near the Mediterranean coast into a charred wasteland littered with burning cars and mangled bodies, displaced survivors said they had no idea where they should go next.
"Those moments as the ground shook underneath my feet and the dust and sand rose to the sky and I saw dismembered bodies - was like nothing I have seen in my life," said Aya Mohammad, 30, a market seller in Mawasi, reached by mobile text message.
"Where to go is what everybody asks, and no one has the answer."
Mawasi on the western outskirts of Khan Younis has been sheltering hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled to the area after Israel declared it a safe zone. Israel said its strike there on Saturday targeted Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif, an architect of the Oct. 7 assault on Israeli towns and villages that triggered the Gaza war.
Palestinian officials say at least 90 people were killed on Saturday and many hundreds wounded. Reuters journalists at the scene filmed carnage, with residents carrying the wounded and dead amid flames and smoke.
Further south in Rafah, main focus of Israel's advance since May, residents reported renewed fighting on Monday. Israeli forces in western and central parts of the city blew up several homes, they said. Medical officials said they recovered 10 bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in eastern areas of the city, some of which had already begun to decompose.
Meanwhile, Britain's new Foreign Secretary David Lammy reaffirmed his call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war during a second day of talks with Israeli leaders on Monday.
Lammy, on his first Middle East trip since his Labour Party's landslide win in the British election, had already called for a halt to hostilities in a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday.
He also met Palestinian Authority prime minister Mohammed Mustafa with whom he pressed the case for reform to the authority, officials said.
"I hope ... that we see a ceasefire soon and we bring an alleviation to the suffering and the intolerable loss of life that we're now seeing also in Gaza," Lammy said during a meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Monday, according to a statement released by Herzog's office.
Lammy added that Hamas must release the hostages seized in its October 7 attacks. He said he was "very conscious of the pain and anguish that many hostage families are experiencing and the nation is experiencing".
Herzog said the more than 100 hostages still in Gaza-"in terrible circumstances in real danger for their lives"-were the key issue for Israel.
"We are working tirelessly to get them out. I sincerely hope that there will be a hostage deal soon, it is a very important step," Herzog said.
A senior Hamas official said on Sunday that the group had halted negotiations with international mediators because of Israel's recent attacks in Gaza and its attitude towards talks.
Israel has not commented and Hamas said it was ready to return when Israel shows "seriousness in reaching a ceasefire agreement and a prisoner exchange deal".
Lammy has also called for the speeding up of aid deliveries into Gaza. Going into the visit, he pointed to 680 tonnes of British aid that he said was waiting to enter the hunger-stricken and besieged territory.
Gaza says war death
toll at 38,664
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Monday at least 38,664 people have been killed in the war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes 80 new deaths in 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 89,097 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 07.