Hamas has claimed that a ceasefire in Gaza is possible ‘within 24 to 48 hours’ if Israel accepts its demands, as negotiators are set to meet in Cairo today in the hope they can thrash out a new truce deal.
A delegation led by Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ deputy leader in Gaza, has reportedly arrived in Cairo, along with mediators from Qatar and the US, as negotiations are set to resume there today.
The list of demands the group wants met include ‘the return of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza and increasing humanitarian aid,’ an official said.
Hopes for a fresh ceasefire have been reignited after a US administration official said last night that there is ‘a deal on the table’ which Israel has ‘more or less accepted’.
‘It will be a six-week ceasefire in Gaza starting today if Hamas agrees to release the defined category of vulnerable hostages, the sick, the wounded, elderly and women,’ the Washington official said.
They added that the path to a ceasefire is ‘now straightforward’ and that the onus is now on Hamas to accept the deal.
At least 14 Palestinians, including six children, were killed on Sunday in an Israeli bombing that targeted a house in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip
Distraught Palestinians gather at the site of a bombed house in Rafah, southern Gaza, on March 3
Palestinian men search for salvageable items amid the rubble of a house destroyed in an overnight Israeli air strike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on March 3
Palestinian children walk past the rubble of the al-Bukhari mosque in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, on March 2
Smoke rises during an Israeli ground operation in Khan Younis on February 29
Negotiators from regional powers have been working around the clock to secure a Gaza truce by the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on March 10.
It comes as fighting continued to rage in the early hours of Sunday, with Israel saying it has intensified its operations in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.
Residents there reported the sound of heavy shelling and tanks advancing around the city.
Israel says its overnight raids destroyed dozens of Hamas targets in a blitz of air and artillery strikes.
Israel’s air force and artillery hit about 50 targets within six minutes, it said, in a bid to ‘intensify operational achievements in the area.’
‘During the strikes, the troops destroyed terrorist infrastructure and eliminated Hamas terrorists who were operating from civilian facilities in urban areas,’ it said.
Residents in the area said they were surprised by the swift advancement of Israeli tanks, which sparked fresh battles with Palestinian gunmen.
In one housing project some families took to social media, saying they were unable to leave their homes with the tanks in the streets.
Palestinians running toward parachutes attached to food parcels, air-dropped from US aircrafts
Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad said it attacked two tanks with rockets and blew up a building where soldiers had entered.
Khan Younis has been a focus of Israel’s military offensive in recent weeks.
Around Rafah, another southern city where more than 1 million Palestinian have been seeking refuge on the border with Egypt, authorities said 25 people were killed on Saturday and into Sunday morning.
They included 11 who died when an Israeli airstrike hit a tent near a hospital and another 14 in one family, who died when a strike hit a house.
Members of ‘Women Wage Peace’ in Tel Aviv, Israel, call for a ceasefire and condemn the death of over 100 people killed in Gaza on February 29
Israel launched its offensive in the Gaza Strip in response to the bloody October 7 attack by Hamas terrorists.
The assault has devastated Gaza. Much of the Hamas-run enclave has been laid to waste and more than 30,400 people have been killed and tens of thousands more injured, according to Gaza health authorities.
Hamas terrorists took some 250 people hostages during their unprecedented cross-border attack on Israel on October 7, 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 31 whom Israel says are presumed dead.
It was unclear how many of the remaining hostages are deemed vulnerable, and a source said yesterday that Israel would not send a delegation until it got a full list of hostages who are still alive.
On Thursday, Gaza health authorities said Israeli forces killed 118 people trying to reach a relief convoy near Gaza City, prompting global outrage.
Israel disputes the health ministry’s death toll in the food convoy catastrophe and said most victims were trampled or run over.
A day later, Mr Biden announced plans for the US airdrop on Saturday, which also involved Jordanian forces.
The U.S. military aircraft released 38,000 meals over Gaza, falling far short of the assistance needed by the territory’s 2.2 million people. U.S. authorities said it was the first of what would be a sustained effort.
At least 15 children have died over the past few days from malnutrition and dehydration at Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital, the health ministry in Gaza said in a statement.
‘We fear for the lives of 6 (other) children suffering from malnutrition and diarrhea at the hospital’s intensive care unit as a result of the cessation of the electric generator and oxygen and the weakness of medical capabilities,’ Ashraf Al-Qidra, the Gaza health ministry spokesperson, said.
People cry as they mourn while receiving the dead bodies of victims of an Israeli strike on March 2
While Israel denies restricting humanitarian aid for Gaza civilians, no humanitarian group has been able to provide aid since January 23, the World Food Programme has warned.
‘If nothing changes, a famine is imminent in northern Gaza,’ WFP’s deputy executive director Carl Skau told the UN Security Council today, while his colleague from the UN humanitarian office OCHA, Ramesh Rajasingham, warned of ‘almost inevitable’ widespread starvation.
At the end of last month, Rajasingham said ‘at least 576,000 people in Gaza – one-quarter of the population’ were ‘one step away from famine, with one in six children under two years of age in northern Gaza suffering from acute malnutrition and wasting’.