A Palestinian man reacts as people inspect damage to houses bombed by Israel in Zaweida, central Gaza, July 7, 2024. Deadly airstrikes launched in Gaza Strip.
Eyad Baba | Free Mp3 Download AFP via Getty Images
Hamas is awaiting Israel’s response to its ceasefire proposal, two Palestinian organization officials said on Sunday, five days after it accepted a key part of a U.S. plan to end the ceasefire. nine months of war In Gaza.
“We have left the response to the mediators and are awaiting a response from the occupation,” one of two Hamas officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to hold consultations on Sunday on the next steps in negotiations on a three-phase plan proposed by U.S. President Joe Biden in May and mediated by Qatar and Egypt.
The goal is to end the war and free the approximately 120 Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
Another Palestinian official with knowledge of ceasefire deliberations said Israel was negotiating with Qatar.
“They have discussed Hamas’s response with Hamas and have promised to provide them with an Israeli response within days,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters on Sunday.
Netanyahu said the negotiations would Continue this week But no detailed timetable was given.
Hamas abandoned a key demand that Israel commit to a permanent ceasefire before signing the deal. Instead, Hamas sources told Reuters on Saturday that talks would be allowed to achieve this goal in a six-week first phase as the talks are being held privately.
A Palestinian official familiar with the peace efforts said that if Israel accepted the offer, a framework agreement could be reached and an end to the war.
CIA Director William Burns will travel to Qatar this week for talks, a person familiar with the matter said.
The conflict began nine months ago on Oct. 7 when militants led by Hamas, which controls Gaza, attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli data.
According to health officials in Gaza, more than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli military attacks and much of the coastal enclave has been reduced to rubble.
Israeli airstrikes on Sunday killed Ehab Al-Ghussein, a Hamas-appointed deputy labor minister, and a teacher at a religious school in western Gaza City, Hamas media and civil emergency services said. Three others, the school provides shelter to Christian and Muslim families.
The Israeli military said it struck militants holed up in schools and nearby weapons-making facilities after taking steps to minimize the risk of harm to civilians.
Qusayn’s wife and children were killed in an Israeli attack in May.
UNRWA, the Palestinian agency for Palestine, described the situation as increasingly tragic, posting on
protests in israel
In Israel, pRotator People across the country took to the streets to put pressure on the government to agree to a ceasefire agreement in Gaza that would bring back the 120 hostages still being held in Gaza.
They blocked rush-hour traffic at major intersections across the country, picketed politicians’ homes and briefly set fire to tires on the main Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway before police cleared the road.
Meanwhile, fighting in the Gaza Strip continues to rage, with northern Israel coming under rocket attack from Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah.
Air raid warnings sent residents of 24 Israeli towns fleeing to shelters. One person was seriously injured, police said. Hezbollah said it fired rockets at a military base.
In Gaza, Palestinian health officials say multiple Israeli military attacks have killed at least 15 people
An Israeli airstrike on a house in the town of Zawayda in central Gaza killed at least six people and injured many others, while an airstrike on a house in western Gaza killed six people, health officials said.
Gaza’s health ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants, but officials say most of the dead throughout the war have been civilians. Israel lost 323 soldiers in Gaza and said at least a third of the Palestinian dead were fighters.
Israeli tanks intensified their attacks in areas of central and northern Rafah, south of Gaza and on the border with Egypt.
Health officials there said they had found the bodies of three Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in the east of the city.
Israeli forces killed 30 Palestinian gunmen in close combat and air strikes in Rafah over the past day, the military said on Sunday.
The military said its forces killed several Palestinian gunmen and recovered weapons and explosives in Shejaya, an eastern suburb of Gaza City. It released a drone video showing gunmen inside a house, some of whom appeared injured or dead.
Reuters could not immediately verify the video.
Armed factions of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said the militants used anti-tank rockets and mortars to attack Israeli forces at multiple locations in the Gaza Strip.
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