# Israeli strikes kill nearly 90 in Gaza as ceasefire talks and aid pressure collide
Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip killed at least 88 people on 2025-05-16, according to rescuers cited by RTÉ News. The reported toll came as the war, the hostage crisis and the fight over humanitarian access continued to shape the political track around Gaza.
The source says the Gaza civil defence agency put the death toll at 88 after strikes across the territory. It also says the broader context included pressure on Israel to ease a blockade that aid agencies have warned has produced critical shortages of food, clean water, fuel and medicines. Those shortages had already become a central issue in diplomatic exchanges, public statements and international criticism.
The evidence in the packet also places the attacks within a much larger and still unresolved war. Hamas' October 2023 assault on Israel killed 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, and 57 hostages remained in Gaza at the time of the report, including 34 the military said were dead. On the Palestinian side, the Gaza health ministry said 2,985 people had been killed since Israel resumed strikes on 18 March, bringing the overall war toll in Gaza to 53,119.
Beyond the casualty numbers, the source describes a diplomatic standoff over aid. Hamas had freed Edan Alexander, the last living hostage with US nationality, after direct engagement with the Trump administration. A senior Hamas official said the group expected the US to exert further pressure on Israel to open crossings and let humanitarian aid enter. That set up a parallel campaign of public pressure, with Hamas linking hostage diplomacy to aid access and Washington trying to claim progress while still facing criticism over conditions in Gaza.
The report also notes that US President Donald Trump said in Abu Dhabi that "a lot of people are starving" in Gaza and that his administration was looking at the territory. Separately, European leaders, including Ireland's taoiseach, signed a statement condemning what they called a man-made humanitarian catastrophe. The Council of Europe and UN agencies likewise warned of deliberate starvation and severe shortages.
On the ground, the source describes scenes of devastation in northern Gaza, including families grieving at the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia. Those details underline the human cost of the strikes, but the evidence pack does not provide a fuller independent casualty breakdown, so the article should not overstate how the 88 deaths were distributed or whether the number changed later.
The military said it had struck more than 150 targets in 24 hours. It also said its campaign was designed to pressure Hamas to free the remaining hostages. That claim, and Hamas's demand for aid access, show how the conflict had become a contest between military escalation, humanitarian catastrophe and stalled diplomacy.
