Egypt has offered an early two-day ceasefire in Gaza to exchange four Israeli hostages from Hamas for some Palestinian prisoners, Egypt’s president said on Sunday, as Israeli military strikes killed 45 Palestinians across the territory.
Egyptian leader Abdel Fatah al-Sisi made the announcement as part of efforts to restart the devastating, more than year-long war in Qatar, in which directors of the CIA and Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency took part.
Speaking alongside Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune during a press conference in Cairo, Sisi also said talks should resume within 10 days of imposing a temporary ceasefire in efforts to reach a permanent ceasefire.
There was no immediate comment from Israel or Hamas, but a Palestinian official close to the mediation effort told Reuters: “I hope Hamas will listen to the new proposals, but it is adamant that any agreement must end the war and “Israeli forces must be pulled out of Gaza.”
Israel has said that the war cannot end until Hamas is eliminated as a military force and ruling entity in Gaza.
The US, Qatar and Egypt are leading talks to end the war that began after Hamas fighters crossed into southern Israel on October 7 last year, killing 1,200 people according to Israeli figures And more than 250 were taken hostage.
Gaza health officials say the death toll from Israeli retaliatory air and ground attacks on Gaza is approaching 43,000, leaving the densely populated area in ruins.
An official briefed on the talks told Reuters earlier on Sunday that talks in Doha would seek a short-term ceasefire and the release of some hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Israel releasing Palestinian prisoners.
The aim, which remains unclear after several mediation attempts, is to get Israel and Hamas to agree to stop fighting for less than a month, in the hope that this will lead to a more permanent ceasefire.
At least 43 of those killed in Gaza on Sunday were in the north of the enclave, where Israeli troops have returned to root out Hamas fighters whom they say have regrouped there Are.
‘Intolerable’ conditions in northern Gaza
The United Nations said the plight of Palestinian civilians in northern Gaza was “intolerable” and that the conflict was “being waged with little regard for the requirements of international humanitarian law”.
“The Secretary-General (Antonio Guterres) is shocked by the horrific levels of death, injury and destruction in the North, where civilians are trapped under debris, sick and injured people are going without life-saving health care, and families without access to food and shelter. There is a shortage.” Amid reports of families being separated and several people being detained, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
He said Israeli authorities were hindering efforts to deliver food, medicine and other essential humanitarian supplies, putting people’s lives at risk. The destruction and deprivation resulting from Israeli military operations in the north had made life there untenable.
Israel says its forces operate in accordance with international law. It says it targets Hamas operatives who hide themselves among the civilian population, using them as human shields, a charge Hamas denies.
It denies stopping humanitarian aid to Gaza, blames international organizations for problems distributing it and accuses Hamas of stealing from aid convoys.
Jabaliya in focus
Earlier on Sunday, 20 people were killed after airstrikes hit homes in Jabaliya, the largest of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic refugee camps, which has been the focus of an Israeli military offensive for more than three weeks, medics and a Palestinian official said. News agency WAFA said.
Another Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced Palestinian families in Gaza City’s Shati camp killed nine people and wounded 20 others, many of them in critical condition, medics said.
Footage broadcast on Palestinian media, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed people rushing to the bomb site to help evacuate casualties. Bodies were scattered on the ground, while some carried injured children in their arms before loading them into the vehicle.
The Israeli military said it was looking into reports of an attack on the school.
According to Hamas media, those killed at Shati’s school included three local journalists – Saeed Radwan, Hanin Baroud and Hamza Abu Selmeya, head of digital media at Hamas al-Aqsa Television.
On Sunday, Israel’s military said it had killed more than 40 militants in the Jabaliya area in the past 24 hours, as well as destroyed infrastructure and discovered a large amount of military equipment.
Israeli military strikes on the towns of Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza have killed nearly 800 people so far during the three-week offensive, the Gaza Health Ministry said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
