Update | Dozens of bodies found in Gaza during 12-hour truce raising death toll to at least 985
Temporary humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza as international diplomats meet to discuss more permanent solution to the conflict with Unicef saying 192 children have perished so far
The bodies of dozens of Palestinians were pulled from the ruins of bombed-out homes in Gaza on Saturday during a brief truce that top diplomats meeting in Paris urged Israel and Hamas to extend.
More than halfway into a 12-hour ceasefire that began early on Saturday, medics said 85 bodies had been retrieved from buildings ground into rubble across the Gaza Strip.
“We all call on parties to extend the humanitarian ceasefire.”
US Secretary of State John Kerry meanwhile met with counterparts from Europe and the Middle East in Paris, who urged that the ceasefire be extended.
“We all call on parties to extend the humanitarian ceasefire,” France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters after meeting Kerry and counterparts from Britain, Germany, Italy, Qatar and Turkey, as well as an EU representative.
On the ground in Gaza, ambulances sped along roads to neighbourhoods that have been too dangerous to enter for days.
Just over halfway through the truce, they had already found the bodies of 85 people in the rubble, pushing the death toll to 985 Palestinians killed in the coastal enclave since the conflict began on July 8.