At least 81 Palestinians were killed and more than 400 wounded in Israeli attacks in Gaza in the 24 hours up to noon on Saturday, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said.

In one incident, at least 11 people, Among them children, were killed in an attack near a stadium in Gaza City, staff at Al-Shifa Hospital and witnesses told news agencies.

The stadium was being used to house displaced people, who were living in tents.

Footage verified by the BBC shows people digging through the sand with their bare hands and shovels to find bodies.

The Israeli military said it was “unaware of any casualties as a result of the attack,” apart from “one suspected individual who posed a threat” to its forces.

Qatari mediators are hoping US pressure will lead to an agreement following a truce between Israel and Iran that ended 12 days of conflict between the two countries.

A two-month-old ceasefire collapsed in March when Israel launched renewed attacks against Gaza. The agreement, which began on January 19, was planned to be in three phases, but did not go beyond the first.

The second phase called for the establishment of a permanent ceasefire, the return of the remaining live hostages in Gaza in exchange for Palestinians held in Israel, and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

On Thursday, a senior Hamas official told the BBC that mediators had stepped up efforts to reach a new ceasefire agreement and release of hostages in Gaza, but that negotiations with Israel remained deadlocked.

A rally was held in Tel Aviv on Saturday afternoon to demand an agreement that would allow the release of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.Organizers said, “The time has come to end the fighting and bring everyone home in one phase.” Meanwhile, Israeli attacks continue in Gaza. A witness to the attack at the stadium said they were sitting there when they “suddenly heard a huge explosion” after a road was hit. “This area was filled with tents; now the tents are under the sand. We spent hours digging with our bare hands,” Ahmed Qishawi told the Reuters news agency. He said, “There are no wanted people here, nor terrorists like they (the Israelis) claim… There are only civilians, children, who were attacked mercilessly.” Civilians and children Another 14 people, some of them children, were killed in attacks on an apartment block and a tent in the al-Mawasi area. The offensive killed three children and their parents, who died in their sleep, relatives told the Associated Press.

“What have these children done to them? What is their fault?” the children’s grandmother, Suad Abu Teima, told the news agency.

More people were reported killed on Saturday afternoon after an airstrike hit the Tuffah neighborhood, near the Jaffa school where hundreds of displaced Gazans were taking shelter.

The attack killed at least eight people, including five children, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

A witness, Mohammed Haboub, told Reuters about the deaths of his nephews, his father, and his neighbors’ children.

“We didn’t do anything to them, why are they hurting us? Have we hurt them? We are civilians,” he told the news agency.

The Health Ministry said ambulance and civil protection crews were struggling to reach several victims Trapped under rubble and on the roads, due to the impossibility of moving through some of the affected areas.

Asked about the attack on the Tuffah neighborhood, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told the BBC that it “hit a suspicious individual who posed a threat to IDF troops operating in the northern Gaza Strip.”

“Prior to the attack, numerous measures were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians,” it said, adding that it was “not aware of any injuries as a result of the attack.”

The IDF issued a statement late Saturday saying it killed Hakham Muhammad Issa al-Issa, a senior official in Hamas’s military wing, in the Sabra area of ??Gaza City on Friday.

The IDF also noted that he was a founding member of the group and a member of its general security council.and that he played a "significant role in the planning and execution" of the attack against Israel on October 7, 2023.

The Israeli army began its bombardment of Gaza in response to that attack, in which some 1,200 people died and another 251 were taken hostage.

More than 56,000 people have died in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run Health Ministry.

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