CAIRO/GAZA (Dispatches) -- An Israeli military strike killed 12 people in a house in Gaza City early on Saturday, bringing the death toll from strikes across Gaza to 65 over the last day, Palestinian medics said, as mediators launched a new ceasefire push in Qatar.
Residents and medics said at least 14 people had been in the house of the Al-Ghoula family when the strike took place in the early hours, destroying the building.
People scoured the rubble for possible survivors trapped under the debris and medics said several children were among those killed. A few flames and trails of smoke continued to rise from burning furniture in the ruins hours after the attack.
“At about 2 a.m. we were woken up by the sound of a huge explosion,” said Ahmed Ayyan, a neighbor of the Al-Ghoula family, adding that 14 or 15 people had been staying in the house.
“Most of them are women and children, they are all civilians, there is no one there who shot missiles, or is from the resistance,” Ayyan told Reuters.
In Jabalia in the north, an Israeli airstrike martyred three Palestinians, medics said. Earlier in the day, another Israeli airstrike killed three people in a car east of the central town of Deir Al-Balah, they said.
Saturday’s deaths brought the toll to 65 since Friday, health officials said.
A surge in Israeli aggression and the number of Palestinians martyred in recent days comes amid a renewed push to reach a ceasefire in the 15-month-old war and return captives before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20.
Zionist mediators were dispatched to resume talks in Doha brokered by Qatari and Egyptian mediators.
Hamas said it was committed to reaching an agreement but it was unclear how close the two sides were.
Later on Saturday, the resistance group released a video showing an Israeli female captive - identified by Israeli media as a soldier - urging the Zionist regime to do more to 
secure the captives’ release, saying her life and that of other captives was in danger because of the ongoing Israeli military action in Gaza.
Israel’s military onslaught has leveled swathes of the enclave, driving most people from their homes, and has martyred 45,717 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry. 
The military wing of the Hamas resistance movement said it targeted five Israeli battle tanks in the northern part of the Gaza Strip on Friday.
In a brief statement, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said its fighters targeted a Merkava tank with an explosive device in the Saftawi area west of Jabalia refugee camp.
In a second statement, the group said its fighters targeted four more tanks with explosive devices in eastern Jabalia town.
The Al-Qassam Brigades later said in a separate statement that its fighters targeted an Israeli Apache helicopter with a SAM rocket in the east of Al-Bureij refugee camp, the central Gaza Strip.
 The Israeli media acknowledged the regime’s failure to achieve its declared goals in the 15-month-old war on the Gaza Strip, stressing that the occupying entity is paying with blood the cost of staying in the besieged Palestinian territory.
Hebrew-language Maariv daily said in an article penned by Israeli investigative reporter Alon Ben David that the occupation would “never be able” to destroy Hamas and “kill all those” who support the Gaza-based popular group after more than a year of ruinous aggression.
“Every day spent there exacts its own liter of blood, and now the IDF [army] is preparing to throw another division, the fourth in number, into action in Gaza. It needs to be said again that we will never be able to kill all those who identify with Hamas,” the paper said.
“Their numbers in Gaza are an infinite reservoir. We will not destroy the last of the rockets and the last RPG.”
Stressing that the Israeli military has been drawn into a prolonged stay in Gaza, Syria and Lebanon, the newspaper said, “The IDF is looking for explanations that will justify the continued stay and bleeding.” 
“We can be engulfed in the war in Gaza forever, but even in the voice of the IDF commanders we can hear the skepticism when they explain the vital importance of the mission.”
Last month, a former director of Israel’s Mossad spy agency admitted that the regime’s pressure on Hamas had failed to yield any significant results and a prisoner swap deal should be signed as soon as possible.
“We have seen in the last year and two months that the pressure on Hamas has hardly helped,” said Danny Yatom, who led the occupying entity’s spy organization from 1996 to 1998. “We need to go to a deal, and yes - get out of Gaza. It will always be possible to return to Gaza.”