Israeli strikes in Gaza killed 19 people overnight, including a woman and her six children, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was heading to the region on Sunday to try to clinch a ceasefire deal after months of rocky negotiations.
The United States and the other mediators, Egypt and Qatar, said they were close to a deal after two days of talks in Doha, with American and Israeli officials expressing cautious optimism. But Hamas has balked at what it describes as new Israeli demands, and the long-running talks have repeatedly stalled.
The evolving proposal envisions a three-phase process in which Hamas would release all hostages it took during the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the deadliest war ever fought between Israelis and Palestinians. In exchange, Israel would withdraw its forces from Gaza and free Palestinian prisoners.
Mediators hope to end a war that has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to local security officials, displaced the vast majority of the 2.3 million residents and created a humanitarian catastrophe. Experts have warned of famine and the emergence of diseases such as polio.
Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack and kidnapped about 250. About 110 are believed to be still inside Gaza, and Israeli authorities estimate a third have died. More than 100 hostages were freed in November during a weeklong ceasefire.
The latest Israeli shelling included an attack Sunday morning on a home in the central town of Deir al-Balah that killed a woman and her six children, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. An Associated Press journalist at the hospital counted the bodies.
Mohammed Awad Khatab, the children’s grandfather, said his daughter, who was a schoolteacher, was with her husband and children when the house was attacked. The children were aged between 18 months and 15 years, he said, and four of them were quadruplets. The father was hospitalised after the attack.
“The six children have turned into pieces of bodies. They were put in one bag,” he told reporters outside the hospital. “What had they done? Had they killed any of the Jews? (…) Will this give Israel security?”
Another attack in the northern town of Jabaliya hit two apartments in a residential building, killing two men, a woman and her daughter, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Another strike in central Gaza killed four people, according to Awda Hospital. Four people from the same family, including two women, were killed Saturday in an attack near the southern town of Khan Younis, according to Nasser Hospital.
Israel says it only targets militants and blames Hamas for civilian deaths because the militant group hides fighters, weapons, tunnels and rockets in residential areas. But Israeli airstrikes in recent months have wiped out entire families and left thousands orphaned.
Mediators have been trying for months to halt the fighting, efforts that took on added urgency after the killings of two militant leaders last month, both blamed on Israel, prompted vows of revenge from Iran and the Lebanese group Hezbollah and stoked fears of open war in the Middle East.
A U.S. official said Friday that mediators were beginning preparations to implement the latest cease-fire proposal, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office expressed “cautious optimism” that a deal could be reached.
An Israeli delegation was scheduled to travel to Cairo on Sunday for further talks, and Blinken was expected to meet Netanyahu on Monday.
Hamas has questioned whether a deal is close and said the new proposal has significant differences from the previous version, which it had accepted in principle. Hamas has rejected Israeli demands for a long-term military presence on the Gaza-Egypt border and for a line dividing Gaza from east to west, where Israeli forces would search Palestinians returning to their homes. Israel says both are necessary to prevent militants from rearming and returning to the north.
Israel has shown flexibility on withdrawing from the border corridor, and a meeting is scheduled next week between Egyptian and Israeli militaries to agree on a disengagement mechanism, according to two Egyptian officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private negotiations.
Meanwhile in Lebanon, three United Nations peacekeepers were injured when an explosion hit their vehicle near the southern town of Yarin. The peacekeeping mission, known as UNIFIL, said the incident was under investigation and gave no further details.
Hezbollah launched near-daily drone and rocket attacks on the border after the Gaza war broke out, prompting Israeli retaliation in a cycle of violence that has continued to escalate. UNIFIL said about 12 peacekeepers have been wounded since the start of the attacks and counterattacks.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where violence has erupted since the Gaza war began, gunmen marched in a funeral procession for two Hamas commanders killed in an Israeli airstrike in Jenin the previous day.
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