Hamas announced on Saturday that it was “studying” an Israeli counter-proposal for a ceasefire in the fighting in Gaza linked to the release of hostages, a day after a delegation of Egyptian mediators arrived in Israel to try to restart stalled talks.
The war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas has been raging since October 7 in the Gaza Strip, where “the threshold of starvation will be crossed in the next six weeks” if massive food aid is not delivered, the UN warned on Friday night.
“Today, Hamas received an official response from the Zionist occupation (Israel, editor’s note) to our position that was submitted to the Egyptian and Qatari mediators on April 13,” stated the number 2 of Hamas’ political branch for Gaza, Khalil al-Hayya.
“The movement will study this proposal and submit its response after the study is completed,” he added in a press release issued on Saturday.
Hamas has previously insisted on a permanent ceasefire, a hypothesis rejected by Israel.
instead he insists on a few weeks break from fighting.
Israel is preparing to launch a ground offensive in Rafah despite international fears. Many capitals and humanitarian organizations fear bloodshed in this city where a million and a half Palestinians are crammed, many in tent camps, without water or electricity.
Rafah was regularly bombed. Hospital officials said more than ten people were killed in the bombings there overnight from Friday to Saturday. The whole family was decimated, said relative Muhamed Yusef: “No one was left: father, mother, girl and two boys” were killed when their house was “targeted”.
Elsewhere in Rafah, people searched the ruins of houses that Abed al-Aziz Barhum, a young man with a thin moustache, said had been “bombed without warning”. He called on “all Arab people to support us against the occupation and help us achieve a ceasefire”.
Ceasefire Box
After six and a half months of bombing and ground fighting, Israel estimates that Hamas has four battalions clustered in the city.
The war in Gaza was launched on October 7 by an unprecedented attack by Hamas commandos against Israel, which resulted in the death of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to AFP based on official data.
More than 250 people were abducted and 129 remain trapped in Gaza, 34 of whom have died according to Israeli officials.
In retaliation, Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, which has been in power in Gaza since 2007 and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. His army launched an offensive that killed a total of 34,388 people, mostly civilians, according to Hamas.
Egypt, Qatar and the United States are trying in vain to forge a new cease-fire agreement in Gaza, after a week-long pause in fighting in November that allowed the exchange of 80 hostages for 240 Palestinian detainees.
Details of Israel’s counter-proposal have not been released, but the Israeli press earlier this week mentioned the possible release, initially, of 20 hostages considered “humanitarian cases”.
On Friday, an Egyptian delegation arrived in Israel to discuss a “comprehensive framework for a ceasefire” in Gaza, according to Egyptian intelligence outlet Al-Qahera News, citing a senior Egyptian official.
“We are tired”
The war will also be at the center of meetings with high-ranking Arab and European diplomats, including the French and German foreign ministers, expected this weekend in Saudi Arabia.
A special meeting of the World Economic Forum, due to begin Sunday in the capital Riyadh, will include a session on Gaza on Monday attended by new Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa, Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly and Sigrid Kaag, the United Nations aid coordinator for the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that its planes hit more than 25 targets in the previous day in the Gaza Strip.
“We are tired after seven months of displacement and fighting in the camps, so we insisted on returning and staying in a tent on the ruins of our house,” said Abdelqader Mohammed Qwaider.
The World Food Program (WFP) has warned that hunger is a “real and dangerous threat” in Gaza. A British ship left Cyprus on Saturday to receive hundreds of US military personnel who are building an artificial jetty in Gaza in a bid to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid.
Lebanon, Yemen, United States of America
The United Nations Palestine Refugee Agency (UNRWA), the “backbone of humanitarian operations” in Gaza according to its chief Philippe Lazzarini, is facing a drop in funding following Israeli allegations in January that several of its employees were involved in the October 7 attack.
The UN announced on Friday that it had closed or suspended five of the 19 cases targeting UNRWA staff.
The war between Israel and Hamas has caused an outbreak of violence on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where fire is exchanged daily between the Israeli army and the Iranian-backed Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah.
In Yemen, the Houthi rebels, who are also backed by Iran and claim to be acting in support of the Palestinians in Gaza, claimed responsibility overnight for attacks that damaged the Andromeda Star, a ship sailing in the Red Sea, according to the US military’s Middle East Command. East (Centcom).
In the United States, a close ally of Israel, a protest movement against the war in Gaza is becoming widespread on campuses.
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