Israel will send negotiators to truce talks in Paris on Friday, Israeli media said, as Palestinians in Gaza hoped for a ceasefire that could hold off a full-blown Israeli assault on Rafah, after it endured one of its worst bombardments of the conflict.
Palestinian health officials said 97 people were confirmed killed and 130 wounded in the last 24 hours of Israeli assaults on Gaza, but many more victims were still under rubble.
They later said a bombardment in the central Gaza Strip killed a further 23 people, half of them women and children, Gaza’s Health Ministry said.
Israeli bombing flattened a mosque and destroyed homes
