Gaza rescuers say Israeli strikes kill at least 12 Palestinians

Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli strikes Monday across the territory killed at least 12 people, the majority displaced Palestinians taking shelter in a house in the north.

More than 14 months into the Israel-Hamas war, the violence continued even as the United States expressed "cautious optimism" about the prospects of reaching a ceasefire in Gaza.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that 10 Palestinians were killed when an Israeli strike at dawn hit a house in northern Gaza's Beit Lahia, where several displaced families had sought refuge.

Bassal said a child was killed and several others wounded in a separate strike that hit a house in nearby Jabalia, where Israeli forces have focused their operations in recent months.

Overnight, a tent in an Israeli-designated safe zone in the southern Gaza Strip was hit, killing one Palestinian, according to the civil defence spokesman.

Parties to long-stalled ceasefire talks said a deal could be secured soon to halt the fighting and release hostages held in Gaza.

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Tuesday that "cautious optimism is a fair way to characterise it, though very much tempered by realism".

Hamas said the current talks were "serious and positive", while Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz described the two sides as closer to a deal than ever before.

The war was sparked by an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel's retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 45,059 people, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.