People inspect damage and remove items from their homes following April 7 Israeli airstrikes in Khan Yunis, Gaza.
Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images
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Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images
People inspect damage and remove items from their homes following April 7 Israeli airstrikes in Khan Yunis, Gaza.
Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images
Hamas says it is considering the latest Israeli suggestions for a ceasefire in Gaza, seven months after the start of a conflict that has cost tens of thousands of lives and which Palestinians say Israeli leaders, could soon intensify further if an agreement between the two sides is not reached.
International efforts continue to try to consolidate points of agreement, with Egyptian-led mediators at the heart of efforts to encourage both sides to end the violence.
A senior Hamas official told NPR that the militant group would respond to the latest conditions proposed by Israel once it had considered them in full, but that it was “still studying them” and that there was “no no timetable planned” for their response.
He did not give details of Israel’s proposals, but said they followed conditions set by Hamas earlier this month, which focused on an exchange involving Israeli captives held in Gaza for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israel, as well as a six-week cessation. hostilities.
An Egyptian delegation left Israel on Friday, an official told the AP, after holding discussions on the possibility of an extended, multi-phase ceasefire in Gaza. The plan would allow civilians currently in the south of the territory to return to their homes further north and could eventually lead to a more permanent agreement ending the fighting.
One of the main concerns of the United States – shared by its international partners – is that the Israeli army will launch a large-scale attack on Gaza’s southernmost city, Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians have sought refuge after fleeing widespread fighting elsewhere in the Gaza Strip.
Israel argued that further ground military action in Rafah was necessary to destroy remaining groups of Hamas fighters. But several countries, including neighboring Egypt, have said such an Israeli offensive would have even more serious consequences for civilians and could further destabilize the region as a whole.
Nonetheless, Israeli forces have massed around the city, where airstrikes continue to take place daily. On Saturday, an airstrike in the city killed four children, according to local health authorities. Hamas has repeatedly said it will not enter into a new agreement unless it contains a provision for a permanent truce.
Meanwhile, the US military has begun construction of an offshore loading platform to help deliver more aid to Gaza, with plans to transport trucks from this platform to a temporary dock on the coast of Gaza as part of a large-scale operation that could begin. in a few weeks.
A World Economic Forum official said top leaders, including Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, would meet next week in the Saudi capital Riyadh. The prime minister of Qatar, another country at the center of Gaza ceasefire negotiations, will attend, alongside the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, as well as the US secretary of state Antony Blinken. He will travel there after a planned visit to Israel on Tuesday, as the State Department considers whether to cut off aid to an Israeli military unit that it says has committed serious human rights violations against Palestinians. in the occupied West Bank.
Meanwhile, China will also host senior leaders from Abbas’s Fatah party and Hamas next week for new talks, intended to help ease a long-running political conflict between the two factions that until October 7 ruled Gaza and the West Bank respectively. The US government does not publicly support such reconciliation, given that it considers Hamas a terrorist group, but recognizes the legitimacy of Fatah and its leadership of the Palestinian Authority which exercises limited autonomy in the occupied West Bank.
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