By Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO, Aug 18 (Reuters) – An Israeli airstrike killed at least six Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, health officials said, a day after Donald Trump’s envoy Jared Kushner ended a trip to the region that failed to push forward the U.S. president’s plan to end the war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said it had carried out an airstrike on Hamas commanders and several other militants. It said one of those targeted had taken part in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that triggered the war.
Gaza medics said that as well as the six dead, 14 others were wounded when the Israeli plane fired two missiles at a small cafe inside the fishing harbour in western Gaza City.
The seaport has turned into a large displacement camp for Palestinian families during the war that began in October 2023.
Blood stained the ground that was strewn with debris and people’s shoes after the airstrike.
The Israeli military had initially said the strike targeted the Hamas commanders, who it said had planned to carry out attacks against Israeli troops in Gaza before later saying several other militants were also killed. It did not release evidence.
KUSHNER MEETINGS
Hamas accused Israel of trying to sabotage Trump’s plan to end the war, which both Israel and Hamas agreed to last year, but said the Palestinian militant group was committed to the agreement. It said a child was among those killed in the strike.
Hamas did not say whether any of its commanders or any other militants had been killed in the strike. The militant group rarely acknowledges casualties amongst its own ranks.
Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, left Jerusalem on Monday without a breakthrough after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A day earlier, he met mediators and Hamas leaders in Egypt over ways to enhance the implementation of Trump’s new roadmap for Gaza, with Hamas and Israel staying firm on their main demands.
After the meetings, an official from Trump’s so-called Board of Peace, which put forward the roadmap, said Israel retained its “full right of self defence” and that there would be no “redeployment” by the Israeli military until Hamas was disarmed.
An Israeli official said Netanyahu made it clear that the military would continue to operate in Gaza and that there would be no pullback of Israeli troops.
BOTH SIDES DISPUTE SEQUENCE
In what had appeared to be a possible breakthrough at the end of last month, Trump announced that Hamas had accepted the roadmap, which said the Palestinian militant group would decommission its weapons in phases as Israel’s military withdrew from Gaza. The military would also stop its operations in the territory.
Netanyahu, whose ruling coalition is trailing ahead of an October election, rejected the roadmap, insisting that the military would only withdraw once Hamas is completely disarmed.
Hamas has demanded that Israel adhere to the ceasefire and withdraw its forces from Gaza. Both sides have disputed the sequencing of how Trump’s plan should be implemented.
“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 U.S. and others to go and finish the job in the appropriate way,” 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.
(Reporting by Nidal Al-Mughrabi, and Alexander Cornwell in Jerusalem; Editing by Alexandra Hudson, Alison Williams and Mark Porter)
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