DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — European officials struck a new deal with Israel to allow desperately needed food and fuel into Gaza, the European Union’s foreign policy chief said Thursday as an Israeli airstrike killed 10 children and five adults waiting for care outside a medical clinic.

The announcement came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to leave Washington after meetings with President Donald Trump, apparently without finalizing a temporary truce advocated by the White House.

Netanyahu said Israel continues to pursue a deal for a 60-day pause in the fighting and the release of half of the 50 hostages remaining in Gaza, many of them believed dead.

Once that deal is in place, Israel is prepared to negotiate a permanent end to the war, Netanyahu said — but only on condition that Hamas disarms and gives up its governing and military capabilities in Gaza.

“If this can be achieved through negotiations — so much the better,” he said in a video statement. “If it is not achieved through negotiations in 60 days, we will achieve it in other ways; by using force, the force of our heroic army.”

Still, U.S. officials hope that restarting high-level talks, mediated by Egypt and Qatar and including White House envoy Steve Witkoff, could bring progress.

“We’re closer than we’ve been in quite a while and we’re hopeful, but we also recognize there’s still some challenges in the way,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters at a stop in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Thursday’s deal could result in “more crossings open, aid and food trucks entering Gaza, repair of vital infrastructure and protection of aid workers,” said Kaja Kallas, the 27-member EU’s top diplomat.

“We count on Israel to implement every measure agreed,” she said in a post on social media.

Aid groups say Israeli military restrictions and recurring violence have made it difficult to deliver assistance in Gaza even after Israel eased its 2 1/2 month total blockade in May. Experts have warned that the territory is at risk of famine, 21 months into the Israel-Hamas war.

Kallas said the deal would reactivate aid corridors from Jordan and Egypt and reopen community bakeries and kitchens across Gaza. She said measures would be taken to prevent the militant Hamas group from diverting aid. The United Nations says there is no evidence for widespread diversion.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar acknowledged the deal while attending a conference in Vienna, saying it came “following our dialogue with the EU.” He said the deal includes “more trucks, more crossings and more routes for the humanitarian efforts.”

Neither Saar nor Kallas said whether the aid would go through the U.N.-run system or the U.S.- and Israeli-backed mechanism marred by violence.

Israeli strikes pounded the Gaza Strip overnight, killing at least 36 Palestinians, including 15 people waiting outside a medical clinic, local hospitals and aid workers said Thursday. The Israeli military said one soldier was killed in Gaza.

Gaza’s Nasser Hospital reported a total of 21 deaths in airstrikes in the southern town of Khan Younis and the nearby coastal area of Muwasi. It said three children and their mother, as well as two other women, were among the dead.

The 15 killed early Thursday outside the clinic in the central city of Deir al-Balah were waiting for nutritional supplements, according to Project Hope, an aid group that runs the humanitarian facility. Along with the 10 children, two women were also among those killed.

Israel said it struck near the clinic while targeting a militant it said had entered Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. It also said it was investigating.

Israeli troops have been in Khan Younis to dismantle more than 130 Hamas infrastructure sites over the past week, the military said.

Also Thursday, the military said an Israeli soldier was killed in Khan Younis the day before, after militants burst out of a tunnel and tried to abduct him. The soldier was shot and killed, while troops shot several militants, the military said.

Eighteen soldiers have been killed in the past three weeks, one of the deadliest periods for the Israeli army in months, putting additional public pressure on Netanyahu to end the war.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, two Palestinians killed a 22-year-old Israeli man at an Israeli supermarket in a settlement on Thursday afternoon, according to Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency services.

Earlier Thursday, a Palestinian man, 55, was killed in the West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry. The Israeli military said the man was shot after stabbing a soldier in the village of Rumana. The soldier survived.