Israeli forces advanced deeper into some towns on the eastern side of Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Thursday and tanks advanced in central Rafah, with airstrikes and shelling killing 30 Palestinians over the past day, health officials said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who told U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday he was actively engaged in bringing hostages home, is expected to meet U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice-President Karmala Harris on Thursday.

Fighting in recent days has centred around the eastern towns of Bani Suaila, Al-Zanna, and Al-Karara, where the army said on Wednesday it had found the bodies of five Israelis who were killed in Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel and held in Gaza since.

Later on Thursday, Gaza's health ministry said Israeli military strikes on areas in eastern Khan Younis had killed 14 people, taking the death toll across Gaza over the past 24 hours to 30 people with 146 injured.

Hamas militants took more than 250 hostages in the early morning raid into southern Israel and killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel retaliated by vowing to eradicate Hamas in Gaza in a nine-month war that has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians, Gaza health officials say.

Several were wounded in the eastern towns during Israeli tank and aerial shelling, while an airstrike east of Khan Younis killed four people, Palestinian health officials said.

Israeli bombardment intensified in several areas in Rafah, near the border with Egypt, as tanks operated north, west and in the town centre, residents and medics said. Several Palestinians were also wounded in Israeli fire earlier on Thursday.

The Israeli military said forces operating in Khan Younis killed dozens of militants and dismantled around 50 military infrastructures, while it continued activities in Rafah, killing two militants.

In a speech to the U.S. Congress, Netanyahu said his government was actively involved in seeking the release of remaining hostages and was confident they would succeed.

DISAPPOINTING SPEECH

Hamas described the comments by Netanyahu as "pure lies" accusing him of thwarting efforts to end the war.

Netanyahu's comments also disappointed many displaced Palestinians who had hoped for a clearer signal of an imminent end to the fighting, which has laid the overcrowded enclave to waste and created a humanitarian crisis.

"It was depressing, he didn't even mention ceasefire at all, not even once," said Tamer Al-Burai, a resident of Gaza City, now displaced in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

"People awaited some surprise, a ceasefire announcement by Netanyahu as a gift to (U.S. President Joe) Biden, but they slept with much disappointment, as Netanyahu said he was determined to pursue war," Burai told Reuters via a chat app.

Deir Al-Balah, where tanks haven't yet invaded, is currently overcrowded with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, displaced from other areas of the enclave, home to 2.3 million people.

"Netanyahu spoke in a play, he spoke to clowns," said Burai.

Diplomatic efforts by Arab mediators, backed by the United States, to conclude a ceasefire deal, seemed to be on hold, as Israel was expected to send a delegation for more talks next week.

In northern Gaza, an Israeli air strike on a house in the Sheikh Radwan suburb killed four people, medics said, while seven Palestinians arrived at a hospital in central Gaza who had been detained by Israeli forces and released in an area close to the border.

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Israeli hostages' group sees 'sabotage' in Gaza talks

Israeli strikes hit Gaza on Thursday, causing deaths and injuries according to Palestinian medical sources, as a group supporting Israeli hostages held by Palestinian militants alleged "sabotage" of efforts to free them.

The accusation from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum came with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a visit to Washington and after Israel's military said it had recovered from Gaza the bodies of five Israelis killed on the day the war began.

Netanyahu -- whose critics accuse him of prolonging the fighting -- is to hold talks Thursday with US President Joe Biden, who has been pushing a truce and hostage-release deal.

In a speech to the United States Congress on Wednesday, Netanyahu downplayed Palestinian civilian casualties during the more than nine months of war between Israeli forces and Hamas militants.

He again vowed to destroy Hamas and bring home the hostages.

The Hamas attack that started the war on October 7 resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Out of 251 people taken hostage that day, 111 are still held in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

At least 39,175 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's military campaign in Gaza since the war began, according to the health ministry of the Hamas-run territory, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.

The latest toll includes 30 deaths over the previous 24 hours.

Palestinian medical services on Thursday said their teams transported four dead and 12 wounded after a strike on a house in the Gaza City area of the territory's north.

- 'Crisis of trust' -

An AFP correspondent reported air strikes and machine gun fire from tanks in Gaza City. To the south, witnesses reported artillery fire in the Khan Yunis city and Rafah areas, as well as air strikes in Al-Qarara, near Khan Yunis.

Israel's military said the five hostage bodies recovered from Gaza had been returned to Israel following a rescue operation.

All had previously been announced dead, and the military as well as the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said militants had killed them on October 7.

The Forum has regularly protested in Israel for a deal to get the remaining captives home.

On Thursday it demanded an urgent meeting with Israel's team for negotiating a ceasefire and hostage-release deal, saying a "crisis of trust" had emerged.

"It has now become apparent that the information provided to the hostages' families did not accurately reflect the situation's reality," the group said in a statement.

"This foot-dragging is a deliberate sabotage of the chance to bring our loved ones back. It effectively undermines the negotiations and indicates a serious moral failure."

Anti-government protesters who have also regularly demonstrated, sometimes by the tens of thousands, have similarly accused Netanyahu of dragging out the war, as have some analysts.

Far-right members of Netanyahu's ruling coalition oppose a truce.

After Netanyahu's speech to Congress, Hamas issued a statement saying he "thwarted all efforts aimed at ending the war and concluding a deal to release the prisoners, despite the continuous efforts of mediators from our brothers in Egypt and Qatar".

- Delegation delayed -

A senior US administration official said on Wednesday that negotiations on a Gaza deal were in the last stretch and Biden would try to close some "final gaps" with Netanyahu.

But a source with knowledge of the talks said separately that the arrival of an Israeli delegation in Doha for talks on Israeli demands for a deal had been postponed from Thursday to next week.

Washington has been increasingly alarmed by the humanitarian toll of the Gaza war, but in his speech to Congress, Netanyahu dismissed "all the lies" about civilian fatalities.

He said "the war in Gaza has one of the lowest ratios of combatants to non-combatant casualties in the history of urban warfare".

AFP correspondents in Gaza have daily witnessed children and women brought in to hospitals injured or dead.

In May, the United Nations said women and children made up at least 56 percent of those killed during the war, based on a breakdown provided by Gaza's health ministry at that time.

The United States on Wednesday criticised an Israeli bill that would declare the UN agency for Palestinian refugees -- the main aid agency in Gaza -- a terrorist organisation.

"UNRWA is not a terrorist organisation," said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, urging a halt to the legislation.

In January, Israel accused some of UNRWA's 13,000 Gaza employees of involvement in Hamas's October attack, and later said the agency employs more than 400 "terrorists".

A subsequent independent review of UNRWA found some "neutrality-related issues" but said Israel had yet to provide evidence for its allegations.

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Biden discusses cease-fire, hostage deal with Netanyahu. Harris meets separately with Israeli prime minister

One day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged continued unity and support between Israel and the United States in his address to Congress, President Joe Biden met with Netanyahu Thursday to discuss possible steps towards a cease-fire in Gaza and a hostage release deal.

Thursday marks Biden’s first meeting with a foreign leader since he announced he will not seek reelection, CBS News reported, and Netanyahu’s first visit to the Capitol in nearly four years. “From a proud Jew Zionist to a proud Irish American Zionist, I want to thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the State of Israel. And I look forward to discussing with you today and working with you in the months ahead,” Netanyahu told Biden ahead of their meeting, according to a White House pool reporter.

Biden and Netanyahu also reportedly met with the families of Americans held hostage by Hamas, who said the two leaders’ discussion was “productive and honest,” The Associated Press reported.

“There was a lot on the agenda, but first and foremost will be discussing how deeply and how strongly the president feels, we feel, that we’ve got to get this hostage deal in place so we can get a cease-fire also in place,” White House national security communications adviser John Kirby said during a press conference. “Today is the 293rd day that these hostages have been held captive by Hamas ... there ought not to be a 294th, and we’re going to keep working on that,” he said.

Biden and Netanyahu’s meeting lasted for about an hour and a half, according to the Israeli prime minister’s office, per ABC News.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who did not attend Netanyahu’s Wednesday address due to a pre-scheduled event in Indianapolis, a decision criticized by Utah’s representatives, met separately with the Israeli prime minister later on Thursday, per the White House. Netanyahu is also slated to meet with former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Friday.

Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, D.C., has been both rebuked and praised, as some members of Congress stood to applaud Netanyahu every two minutes during his nearly 52-minute-long address while protests calling for a cease-fire in Gaza took place throughout the nation’s capital.

Harris released a statement on July 25 regarding the protests at Union Station in Washington, D.C., condemning the “despicable acts by unpatriotic protestors and dangerous hate-fueled rhetoric,” after protesters removed then burned an American flag, defaced monuments and attacked law enforcement officers.

Harris meets with Netanyahu

In a separate meeting in the vice president’s ceremonial office at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Harris and Netanyahu’s discussion also focused on the Israel-Hamas conflict.

“We have a lot to talk about,” Harris said as she welcomed the Israeli leader. “We do indeed,” Netanyahu replied. Their meeting reportedly lasted 40 minutes.

Afterwards, Harris spoke to reporters about her meeting with the prime minister. Harris called her meeting with Netanyahu, “frank and constructive,” and said, “I will always ensure that Israel is able to defend itself, including from Iran and Iran-backed militias.”

The vice president said that she has met with family members of the American hostages “multiple times now,” and that she and President Biden are “working everyday to bring them home.”

Harris said she expressed her “serious concern” to Netanyahu regarding the “scale of human suffering in Gaza” and the “dire humanitarian situation there.”

“We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering and I will not be silent,” she said.

Harris said there is a cease-fire and hostage deal on the table. “It is time for this war to end, and end in a way where Israel is secure, all the hostages are released, the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can exercise their right to freedom, dignity and self-determination. There has been hopeful movement in the talks to secure an agreement on this deal,” she said.

Netanyahu’s bilateral meetings with Biden and Harris come less than a day after Biden’s Oval Office address, during which Biden outlined his top priorities for the last months of his presidency — one of them being to help end the Israel-Hamas conflict. “I’m going to keep working to end the war in Gaza, bring home all the hostages, and bring peace and security to the Middle East and end this war,” Biden said.

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