ISRAELI air strikes killed at least 48 people in southern and central Gaza today, half of them women and children, health officials said.

European foreign ministers and United Nations agencies called for a ceasefire, with alarm rising over the worsening humanitarian crisis.

Tensions were also mounting in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where three Palestinian gunmen opened fire on morning traffic at a highway checkpoint, killing one person and wounding five others, Israeli police said.

Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz admitted on Wednesday night that new attempts were under way to reach a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas that could pause the war in the Gaza Strip and bring the release of around 130 Israelis held hostage since the October 7 attack on southern Israel by the Palestinian Islamist group. 

Around 1,200 people were killed during the assault and 250 were taken hostage. Some 100 hostages were released in a swap for Palestinian prisoners during a ceasefire in November. Three have been shot dead by the Israel Defence Forces while trying to give themselves up, and at least 10 have been killed in Israeli air raids.

However, Mr Gantz repeated his threat that, unless Hamas agrees to release the remaining hostages, Israel will launch a ground offensive into Gaza’s southernmost town, Rafah, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins around March 10.

More than half of the Palestinian territory’s population of 2.3 million is crowded into Rafah after fleeing fighting and bombardment elsewhere in the coastal enclave. 

More than 29,400 Gazans have been killed by Israeli attacks and many thousands are still missing, either trapped or dead under bombed-out buildings.

The heads of 13 UN agencies and five other aid groups issued a joint plea for a ceasefire on Wednesday night, warning that an attack on Rafah would cause “mass casualties” and could “deal a death blow” to the humanitarian operation bringing aid to Palestinians, which “is already on its knees.”

The World Food Programme said: “Diseases are rampant, famine is looming” and aid workers face “shelling, death, movement restrictions and a breakdown of civil order.”

UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs official Jonathan Whittal described Gaza’s Nasser Hospital as “a place of death, not a place of healing.”

The agencies called for the opening of more entry points for aid to Gaza, assurances of safe passage for distribution and a release of hostages.

The foreign ministers of 26 European countries called for a pause in fighting, leading to a longer ceasefire, and urged Israel not to take military action in Rafah.