Israeli Strike Kills Six in Gaza a Day After Kushner's Talks With Netanyahu, Medics Say
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, shaking an already fragile ceasefire a day after Donald Trump's envoy Jared Kushner ended a round of Mideast talks without a breakthrough on the U.S. president's plan to end the war.
Gaza medics said 14 people were wounded when two missiles slammed into a small cafe near the fishing harbor in western Gaza City. The waterfront area has been turned into a sprawling camp for families who fled their homes during the fighting that began in October 2023.
The Israeli military said the strike targeted Hamas commanders and later said several other militants were also killed. The military identified one of the men as having taken part in the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, assault on Israel that sparked the war, but released no evidence. As with many such strikes, the account could not be independently verified.
The blast left blood on the ground and scattered debris and shoes across the cafe floor.
Hamas accused Israel of trying to sabotage Trump's roadmap, saying the group remained committed to the agreement reached last year, and said a child was among those killed in the strike. It did not say whether any of its commanders or other militants had been killed, and the group rarely acknowledges losses among its own ranks.
Kushner's visit draws a blank
Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, left Jerusalem on Monday after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A day earlier, while in Egypt, he met with mediators and Hamas leaders to discuss ways of implementing the new U.S. roadmap, but both sides held firm to their core conditions.
After those meetings, an official from Trump's so-called Board of Peace, the body that put forward the plan, said Israel retained its "full right of self-defense" and that there would be no Israeli military redeployment until Hamas was disarmed. An Israeli official said Netanyahu had made clear the army would keep operating in Gaza and would not pull back.
Who moves first remains the sticking point
At the end of last month, Trump announced what looked like a tentative breakthrough: Hamas had accepted a plan under which the militant group would decommission its weapons in phases, while Israeli forces withdrew and ended operations in the territory. But Netanyahu, whose ruling coalition is trailing ahead of an October election, rejected that sequencing, insisting the military would leave only after Hamas was fully disarmed.
Hamas, in turn, has demanded Israel adhere to a ceasefire and withdraw its forces first. That fundamental dispute has kept the plan stuck, and Tuesday's strike is likely to make bridging the gap even harder. The episode exposed again how little room there is for the phased approach Washington has been trying to sell, since it depends on a sequence neither side is willing to test.
"If they 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 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