An Israeli airstrike in Gaza has killed at least 18 people from the same family, even as mediators expressed optimism for an imminent ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas after 10 months of war. The Saturday airstrike hit a home and an adjacent warehouse that had been used to shelter displaced people on the edge of the town of Zawaida, according to the al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah, where casualties were being taken. An Associated Press reporter counted the dead there.

Those were the victims, which included Sami Jawad al-Ejlah, a wholesaler who had previously arranged with the Israeli military to ferry meat and fish into Gaza. His two wives, 11 of his children between two and 22 years, a grandmother to the children, and three other relatives were also killed, according to the list from the hospital.

A relative, Omar al-Dreemli, said: “We are in the morgue seeing indescribable scenes of limbs and severed heads and children who are dismembered. A neighbor, Abu Ahmed, described Ejlah as: “He was a peaceful man.” He said more than 40 civilians had been sheltering in the house and warehouse at the time.

The Israeli military, which very rarely comments on individual strikes, said it had hit “terrorist infrastructure” in central Gaza from which rockets had been fired toward Israel in recent weeks.

Reports were received that as a result of the strike, civilians in an adjacent structure were killed. The incident is under review,” it said. Another mass evacuation was ordered for parts of central Gaza. An Israeli military spokesman, Avichay Adraee, said on X citing Palestinian rocket fire, Palestinians in areas in and around the urban Maghazi refugee camp should leave.

One of the victims of the order was Ahmid Omrani, who declared: “The suffering began from the day we left our homes.” Heavily laden vehicles, bikes, and donkey carts were threading through the rubble as he spoke, continuing with the resignation: “We suffer from fear and anxiety, fear for the children playing in the street. You can’t sleep, sit, or eat well.

Issa Murad, a Palestinian displaced to Deir al-Balah, said: “At every round of negotiations they pressure by forcing evacuations and committing massacres.”

The vast majority of Gaza’s population has been displaced, often many times over, and around 84% of the territory has been placed under military orders to evacuate by the Israeli military, the UN says.

War broke out when Hamas-led fighters invaded across the frontier on October 7th, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and taking 250 hostages back to Gaza. Over 100 hostages were released under a ceasefire in November. Around 110 are thought still to be held there and Israeli officials believe up to a third of those are likely to be dead.

Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 Hamas militants but has given no proof for the same. The health ministry of Gaza says at least 40,074 Palestinians have been killed in the war. Thousands are said to be buried under the debris, and tens of thousands have been injured.

Mediators have been working for months on a three-phase plan under which Hamas would release the rest of the captives in exchange for a permanent ceasefire, the removal of Israeli forces from Gaza, and the freedom by Israel of Palestinians held in its prisons.

We are closer than we have ever been” to a deal, the US president, Joe Biden, said on Friday. But a senior Hamas official on Saturday rejected those remarks as: “It is only a media balloon. To say that we are getting close to a deal is an illusion,” Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas political bureau member, told AFP. “We are not facing