Cairo:

The Palestinian Hamas group said on Wednesday that its negotiators reiterated its readiness to implement an “immediate” ceasefire with Israel in Gaza based on a previous U.S. proposal without new conditions from any party.

The Palestinian group said in a statement that their negotiation team, led by senior official Khalil al-Hayya, met mediators on Wednesday including Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and Egypt’s intelligence chief Abbas Kamel in Doha to discuss the latest developments in Gaza.

Talks have so far failed to reach a deal to end the 11-month-old war. Lingering issue include control of the Philadelphi corridor, a narrow stretch of land on Gaza’s border with Egypt, persisting.

CIA Director William Burns, who is also the chief U.S. negotiator on Gaza, said on Saturday that a more detailed ceasefire proposal would be made in the next several days.

The previous proposal put forward by U.S. President Joe Biden in June laid out a three-phase ceasefire in return for the release of Israeli hostages.

The recent war in Gaza started after Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7 killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s offensive has thus far killed at least 41,084 Palestinians and wounded 95,029 others, the Gaza health ministry says.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Cairo:

Hamas said on Thursday there was no need for new ceasefire proposals for Gaza and pressure should be put on Israel to agree to a U.S. plan that the Islamist group had already accepted.

The United States was expected to present a new truce proposal aimed at breaking an impasse between Hamas and Israel.

In a statement, Hamas said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to thwart an agreement by insisting that Israel will not withdraw from the Philadelphi corridor in southern Gaza.

“We warn against falling into Netanyahu’s trap and tricks, as he uses negotiations to prolong the aggression against our people,” the statement said.

Hamas said it accepted a July 2 proposal put forward by the U.S.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Doha, Qatar:

Hamas said Friday it rejected “new conditions” in a Gaza ceasefire proposal that US-led mediators presented during two days of talks in Qatar.

Diplomatic efforts have so far failed to alleviate the suffering endured over more than 10 months of war, but US President Joe Biden insisted after the latest round of talks that “we are closer than we have ever been”.

He is sending US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Israel this weekend to push the latest proposal, the State Department said.

Egyptian, Qatari and US mediators have been seeking to finalise details of a framework initially outlined by Biden in May, which he said Israel had proposed.

In a joint statement, the mediators said they had presented both sides with a proposal that “bridges remaining gaps” and will continue working in the coming days to hash out the specifics on humanitarian provisions and the hostage-prisoners swap.

Talks aiming to secure a rapid deal are set to resume in Cairo “before the end of next week”.

Hamas, which did not attend the Doha talks, swiftly announced its opposition to what it called “new conditions” from Israel in the latest plan.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on mediators to “pressure” Hamas to accept Biden’s framework.

Threats by Iran and its proxies to attack Israel have added renewed urgency to the efforts to hammer out a Gaza ceasefire, with mediators seeking a deal in the hopes of dousing a wider regional conflict. 

“No one in the region should take actions to undermine this process,” Biden warned, later telling reporters, “There’s just a couple more issues, I think we’ve got a shot.”

– ‘Cataclysmic’ consequences –
An informed source told AFP Hamas had objected to conditions about keeping Israeli troops on Gaza’s border with Egypt and terms related to the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli hostages.

Western ally Jordan, however, put the blame squarely on Netanyahu for blocking a deal, with Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi urging pressure “by everyone who wishes to see this through to completion”.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy and his French counterpart Stephane Sejourne held talks in Israel on Friday to press the deal.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz told his visiting counterparts he expects foreign support if Iran seeks to avenge the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. 

Sejourne replied that it would be “inappropriate” to discuss responding to any attack while diplomacy to stop it from happening is in high gear.

A senior US official, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, said Iran would face “cataclysmic” consequences if it strikes Israel.

A deadly attack by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank late Thursday drew international condemnation and calls for sanctions, including against government ministers, over the surge in settler violence against Palestinians since the Gaza war began.

The Israeli military said “dozens of Israeli civilians, some of them masked”, entered the village of Jit and “set fire to vehicles and structures in the area, hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails”. A Palestinian man was shot dead.

The West Bank-based Palestinian foreign ministry described the attack as “organised state terrorism”.

The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said he would propose sanctions against Israeli government “enablers” of Jewish settler violence.

Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a proponent of West Bank settlements, was quick to join other Israeli leaders in condemning Thursday’s attack by “criminals”.

First polio case recorded

Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead. More than 100 were freed during a one-week truce in November.

On Thursday, the toll from Israel’s retaliatory military campaign topped 40,000, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which does not provide a breakdown of civilian and militant casualties.

The war has devastated the besieged territory’s healthcare infrastructure, prompting repeated warnings from the World Health Organization about the risk of preventable diseases.

On Friday, the Palestinian health ministry reported an unvaccinated 10-month-old child in Gaza had been diagnosed with polio, the territory’s first case in 25 years, according to the WHO.

The announcement came hours after UN chief Antonio Guterres called for two seven-day breaks in the Gaza war to vaccinate more than 640,000 children against type 2 poliovirus, which was first detected in the territory’s wastewater in June.

As truce talks were underway, thousands of civilians were on the move again inside the Palestinian territory after the Israeli military issued fresh evacuation orders ahead of imminent military action.

The UN estimated the orders affect more than 170,000 people, forcing them to pack into the shrinking remnants of an area declared a humanitarian safe zone.

The area where people have been told to relocate to makes up just 11 percent of Gaza, according to the UN.

“During each round of negotiations, they exert pressure by forcing evacuations and committing massacres,” Issa Murad, a Palestinian displaced to Deir al-Balah, said of the Israeli forces.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

President Biden pushes for ceasefire in Gaza amid challenges. File.
| Photo Credit: AP

President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday as the United States presses Israel and Hamas to agree to a “bridging proposal” that could lead to a ceasefire in the war in Gaza.

Hamas and Israel have signaled that challenges remain amid significant differences over the presence of Israeli troops in two strategic corridors in Gaza and other issues, dimming Mr. Biden’s hopes that a deal can soon be reached. Vice President Kamala Harris, who is in Chicago this week to accept her party’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention, also joined the call.

Mr. Biden “stressed the urgency of bringing the ceasefire and hostage release deal to closure,” the White House said in a statement. The two leaders also discussed using high-level talks in Cairo this week between mediators from the U.S., Israel, Egypt and Qatar to work through “remaining obstacles” to an agreement.

But hope that a deal can be completed, at least in the near term, appears to be diminishing.

The president on Friday said he was “optimistic” that an agreement could be reached after he spoke by phone with Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani, and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, whose countries are key interlocutors with Hamas.

But by Tuesday, Mr. Biden was notably more muted about the prospects of the two sides coming to an agreement soon. He told reporters after delivering an address at the Democratic convention that “Hamas was now backing off,” but that the U.S. is “going to keep pushing” to land a ceasefire deal.

The president spoke with the Israeli prime minister from Santa Ynez, Calif., where he’s vacationing with his family at the 8,000-acre property of the medical technology mogul and Democratic donor Joe Kiani.

The White House said Mr. Biden and Mr. Netanyahu discussed escalating tensions between Israel and Iran, and with militant groups — Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis — that are backed by Tehran.

The call came after Secretary of State Antony Blinken met this week with officials in Israel, Egypt, and Qatar and ahead of the new round of talks in Cairo later this week.

“This is a decisive moment, probably the best, maybe the last opportunity to get the hostages home, to get a ceasefire, and to put everyone on a better path to enduring peace and security,” Mr. Blinken said after meeting with Mr. Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Tel Aviv on Monday.

Officials in Egypt told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Hamas won’t agree to the bridging proposal for a number of reasons — ones in addition to the long-held wariness over whether a deal would truly remove Israeli forces from Gaza and end the war.

One Egyptian official, with direct knowledge of the negotiations who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter, said the bridging proposal requires the implementation of the deal’s first phase, which has Hamas releasing the most vulnerable civilian hostages captured in its Oct. 7 attack on Israel that sparked the war. Parties during the first phase would negotiate the second and third phases with no “guarantees” to Hamas from Israel or mediators.

The official said the proposal doesn’t clearly say Israel will withdraw its forces from two strategic corridors in Gaza, the Philadelphi corridor alongside Gaza’s border with Egypt and the Netzarim east-west corridor across the territory. Israel offers to downsize its forces in the Philadelphi corridor, with “promises” to withdraw from the area, the official said.

Hamas is seeking a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, including the Philadelphi Corridor, a narrow 14.5-km-long (nine-mile) stretch of land along the coastal enclave’s southern border with Egypt.

Mr. Netanyahu met earlier this week with right-wing groups of families of fallen soldiers and hostages in Gaza. The groups, which oppose a cease-fire deal, said he told them Israel will not abandon the two strategic corridors in Gaza. Netanyahu’s office did not comment on the groups’ accounts.

Blinken after his visit to Egypt and Qatar said the bridging proposal is “very clear on the schedule and the locations of (Israeli military) withdrawals from Gaza,” but no details on either have emerged.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar as he pressed ahead on Tuesday with the latest diplomatic mission to secure a ceasefire in Gaza, even as Hamas and Israel signaled that challenges remain.

The militant Hamas group called the latest proposal presented to it a “reversal” of what it had agreed to, and accused the United States in a statement of acquiescing to “new conditions” from Israel. There was no immediate U.S. response.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, met with right-wing groups of families of fallen soldiers and hostages in Gaza. The groups, which oppose a ceasefire deal, said Mr. Netanyahu told them Israel will not abandon two strategic corridors in Gaza whose control by Israel has been an obstacle in the talks. Mr. Netanyahu’s office did not comment on their account.

A senior U.S. official rejected as “totally untrue” Mr. Netanyahu’s alleged comments that he had told Mr. Blinken that Israel would never leave the Philadelphi and Netzarim corridors. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss Mr. Blinken’s private diplomatic talks.

Mr. Netanyahu’s meeting with the families came as Israel’s military said it recovered the bodies of six hostages taken in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that started the war, bringing fresh grief for many Israelis who have long pressed Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire that would bring remaining hostages home. New protests were held on Tuesday.

Mr. Blinken’s meetings in Egypt, which borders Gaza, and in Qatar, which hosts some Hamas leaders in exile, come a day after he met Mr. Netanyahu and said the prime minister had accepted a U.S. proposal to bridge gaps separating Israel and Hamas. Mr. Blinken called on Hamas to do the same. Officials did not release details of the bridging proposal.

But there appear to be wide gaps between the two sides, though angry statements often serve as pressure tactics during negotiations.

There has been added urgency to seal a deal after the recent targeted killings of militant leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah in Iran and Lebanon, both blamed on Israel, and vows of retaliation that have sparked fears of a wider regional war.

Israel’s military said its forces recovered the six bodies of hostages in an overnight operation in southern Gaza, saying they were killed during a time that troops were operating in Khan Younis. Hamas says some captives have been killed in Israeli airstrikes, though returning hostages have talked about difficult conditions in captivity, including lack of food or medications.

The recovery of the remains is also a blow to Hamas, which hopes to exchange hostages for Palestinian prisoners, an Israeli withdrawal and a lasting cease-fire.

The military said it had identified the remains of Chaim Perry, 80; Yoram Metzger, 80; Avraham Munder, 79; Alexander Dancyg, 76; Nadav Popplewell, 51; and Yagev Buchshtav, 35. Metzger, Munder, Popplewell and Buchshtav had family members who were also taken hostage and were freed during a November cease-fire.

Munder’s death was confirmed by Kibbutz Nir Oz, the farming community where he was among around 80 residents seized. It said he died after “months of physical and mental torture.” Israeli authorities previously determined the other five were dead. There were no reports of casualties among Israelis or Palestinians in the recovery operation.

Hamas is still believed to be holding around 110 hostages captured on Oct. 7. Israeli authorities estimate around a third are dead.

Hamas-led militants burst through Israel’s defenses on Oct. 7 and rampaged across the south, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 people hostage. Over 100 were released in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel during last year’s cease-fire.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. The air and ground offensive has caused widespread destruction and forced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents to flee their homes, often multiple times. Aid groups fear the outbreak of diseases like polio.

An Israeli airstrike on Tuesday killed at least 12 people at a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City. The Palestinian Civil Defense, first responders operating under the Hamas-run government, said around 700 people had been sheltering at the Mustafa Hafez school. Israel’s military said the strike targeted Hamas militants who had set up a command center there.

“We don’t know where to go … or where to shelter our children,” said Um Khalil Abu Agwa, a displaced woman there.

An Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah hit people walking down the street and seven were killed, including a woman and two children, according to an Associated Press journalist who counted the bodies. More than 20 others were wounded. Another airstrike in central Gaza killed five children and their mother, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where an AP journalist counted the bodies.

Palestinians displaced by recent Israeli evacuation orders crowded into already teeming areas. One child in Deir al-Balah slept on cardboard as insects flew around his face.

“Are they going to dig the ground and dump us there, or put us on a boat and throw us in the sea? I don’t know,” said one man, Abu Shady Afana.

Israeli strikes across Gaza killed 19 people overnight, including a woman and her six children.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Israeli strikes across Gaza killed 19 people overnight, including a woman and her six children, as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken headed to the region on Sunday (August 18, 2024) to try to seal a cease-fire deal after months of contentious negotiations.

The U.S. and fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar appeared to be closing in on a deal after two days of talks in Doha, with American and Israeli officials expressing cautious optimism. But Hamas has signaled resistance to what it says are new demands by Israel, and the long-running talks have repeatedly stalled.

The evolving proposal calls for a three-phase process in which Hamas would release all hostages abducted during its October 7 attack, which triggered the deadliest war ever fought between Israelis and Palestinians. In exchange, Israel would withdraw its forces from Gaza and release Palestinian prisoners.

The mediators hope to end a war that has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, displaced the vast majority of the territory’s 2.3 million residents and caused a humanitarian catastrophe. Experts have warned of famine and the outbreak of diseases like polio.

Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the October 7 attack and abducted around 250. Of those, some 110 are still believed to be inside Gaza, with Israeli authorities saying around a third are deceased. More than 100 hostages were released in November during a weeklong cease-fire.

The latest Israeli bombardment included a strike early Sunday (August 18, 2024) 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.

Mohammed Awad Khatab, the children’s grandfather, said his daughter, a school teacher, was with her husband and their six children when their house was struck. He said the children ranged in age from 18 months to 15 years, and that four of them were quadruplets. He said the father was hospitalized after the strike.

“The six children have become body parts. They were placed in a single bag,” he told reporters outside the hospital. “What did they do? Did they kill any of the Jews?… Will this provide security to Israel?”

A strike in the northern town of Jabaliya hit two apartments in a residential building, killing two men, a woman and her daughter, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Another strike in central Gaza killed four people, according to the Awda Hospital. Late Saturday (August 17, 2024), a strike near the southern city of Khan Younis killed four people from the same family, including two women, according to Nasser Hospital.

Hamas has cast doubt on whether an agreement is near, saying the latest proposal diverged significantly from a previous iteration they had accepted in principle. Hamas has rejected Israel’s demands for a lasting military presence along the Gaza-Egypt border and a line bisecting Gaza where Israeli forces would search Palestinians returning to their homes. Israel says both are needed to prevent militants from rearming and returning to the north.

Israel showed flexibility on retreating from the border corridor, and a meeting between Egyptian and Israeli military officials was scheduled for next week to agree on a withdrawal mechanism, according to two Egyptian officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the private negotiations.

Mr. Blinken is expected to meet with Israeli Prime Minister to talk about Gaza ceasefire
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to arrive in Israel on Sunday (August 18, 2024) as part of Washington’s intensifying diplomatic push to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza that will end the 10-month-old war between Israel and Hamas.

The top U.S. diplomat’s tenth trip to the region since the war began in October,2024 comes days after the United States put forward bridging proposals that it and mediators Qatar and Egypt believe would close gaps between the warring parties.

U.S. officials cite fresh optimism to bring the deal over the finish line but also caution that there is still work to be done.

“What we’ve done is taken the gaps that remain and have bridged those in a way that we think basically is a deal that is now ready to close and implement and move forward,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters on Friday.

In Israel, Mr. Blinken is expected to meet with Israeli Prime Minister and other senior officials.

The negotiations are taking place in the shadow of a feared regional escalation. Iran has threatened to retaliate against Israel after the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31.

Washington has repeatedly warned Iran not to go ahead with any retaliatory action against Israel. The U.S. official said such an act could have “cataclysmic” consequences, particularly for Iran.

Foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy in a joint statement threw their support behind the ongoing ceasefire talks, urging all sides to avoid any “escalatory action.”

Talks on how to implement the deal are expected to continue early next week, before senior officials reconvene in Cairo, with the aim to conclude the deal later in the week in Cairo.

Israel’s negotiating team on Saturday (August 17, 2024) expressed “cautious optimism” on the possibility of advancing a deal, according to a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.

Hamas spokesman Jihad Taha told Al Jazeera TV on Saturday (August 17, 2024) that Israel had added conditions in the ceasefire talks and accused Mr. Netanyahu of using them to hinder efforts.

Even as hopes grew for a ceasefire, war raged on. At least 17 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli strike in the Gaza town of Zawayda on Saturday (August 17, 2024), health officials said, as Israel issued new evacuation orders, citing Hamas rocket fire nearby.

The latest round of war in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict began on October, 7 when Hamas fighters rampaged into Israel, killing around 1,200 people and seizing around 250 hostages according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s subsequent military campaign has reduced much of Gaza to rubble and killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to Palestinian health authorities. Israel says it has eliminated 17,000 Hamas fighters.

Washington:

US President Joe Biden said on Friday that no party in the Middle East should undermine efforts to reach a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal that he claimed was now in sight, but he warned that it was “far from over.”

KEY QUOTES

“No one in the region should take actions to undermine this process,” Biden wrote on social media.

He later told reporters he was optimistic about prospects for a ceasefire.

“As of an hour ago, it’s still in play. I’m optimistic. It’s far from over,” he said on Friday night. “There’s a couple more issues. I think we’ve got a shot,” he added, without elaborating.

Asked when a ceasefire deal would start if a deal is reached, Biden said: “That remains to be seen.”

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT

Israel has insisted that peace will only be possible if Palestinian Islamist group Hamas is destroyed, while Hamas has said it will only accept a permanent ceasefire, not a temporary one.

Ceasefire talks in Doha paused on Friday with negotiators to meet again next week. In a joint statement, the US, Qatar and Egypt said Washington presented a new proposal. Washington, Israel’s most important ally, says a ceasefire will reduce the rising threat of the widening of Israel’s war on Gaza.

Biden originally had laid out a three-phase ceasefire proposal in an address on May 31, but mediators have run into repeated obstacles.

CONTEXT

The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s subsequent assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, and has displaced nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Doha:

The United States hailed a “promising start” to Gaza ceasefire talks Thursday, as pressure mounted for a deal to halt the spread of a war that the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry said has killed 40,005.

The conflict sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel has devastated Gaza, displaced nearly all of its population at least once and triggered a towering humanitarian crisis.

Talks involving CIA director William Burns opened in the Qatari capital Doha, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

“Today is a promising start,” Kirby told reporters in Washington, adding: “There remains a lot of work to do.”

The talks were expected to continue on Friday, he said.

Hamas official Osama Hamdan said the movement did not take part in Thursday’s meeting but stood ready to join the indirect negotiations if they produced new commitments from Israel.

The Palestinian group has demanded the implementation of a truce plan laid out in late May by US President Joe Biden.

“If the mediators succeed in forcing the (Israeli) occupation to agree, we would, but so far there’s nothing new,” Hamdan told AFP.

He said Hamas would not take part in protracted negotiations that “give (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu more time to kill the Palestinian people”.

So far, there has been only one truce in November, when Gaza militants released 105 hostages seized in the October 7 attack, the Israelis among them in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

The latest diplomatic push comes as the health ministry in Gaza said the death toll in the besieged Palestinian territory had surpassed 40,000 — which UN chief Antonio Guterres said was “yet another reason” why a ceasefire was needed now.

“Given the… disturbing number of people who remain unaccounted for, who may be trapped or dead under the rubble, this number may, if anything, be an undercount,” his spokesman Farhan Haq said.

“This is yet another reason why we need to have a ceasefire now, as well as the release of all hostages and unimpeded humanitarian assistance.”

The Gaza health ministry, which does not provide a breakdown of civilian and militant casualties, said the tally included 40 deaths in the previous 24 hours.

The Israeli military said it had killed “more than 17,000” Palestinian militants in Gaza since the war began.

– ‘Time is now’ –
British foreign minister David Lammy and his French counterpart Stephane Sejourne are to discuss the truce talks with Israel’s top diplomat Israel Katz on Friday.

In Beirut on Wednesday, visiting US envoy Amos Hochstein said a deal in Gaza “would also help enable a diplomatic resolution here in Lebanon and that would prevent an outbreak of a wider war”.

“We have to take advantage of this window for diplomatic action and diplomatic solutions. That time is now,” he added.

Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel triggered the war and resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Militants also seized 251 people, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

Mediation efforts have repeatedly stalled since the week-long truce in November.

Hamas officials, some analysts and critics in Israel have said Netanyahu has sought to prolong the war for political gain.

Israeli media this week quoted Defence Minister Yoav Gallant as privately telling a parliamentary committee that a hostage release deal “is stalling… in part because of Israel”.

Netanyahu’s office accused Gallant of adopting an “anti-Israel narrative” and said Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is “the only obstacle to a hostage deal”.

– Bloodied children –
The latest mediation push follows the July 31 killing of Sinwar’s predecessor, Hamas political leader and truce negotiator Ismail Haniyeh. His killing during a visit to Tehran sent fears of a wider conflagration soaring.

Iran and its regional allies blamed Israel and vowed retaliation. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack.

Western leaders have urged Tehran to avoid hitting Israel over Haniyeh’s killing, which came hours after an Israeli strike in Beirut killed Hezbollah’s military commander.

Fallout from the conflict has drawn in Iran-aligned groups from Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria.

More than 370 Hezbollah members have been killed in 10 months of near daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces, according to an AFP tally, more than the Iran-backed movement lost in the 2006 war with Israel.

On the Israeli side, 22 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed, including in the annexed Golan Heights, according to military figures.

In Gaza, where the war has destroyed much of the territory’s housing and other infrastructure, relatively few deaths were reported on Thursday.

In the deadliest bombardment, emergency services said air strikes killed five people in Gaza City.

Israel’s military said troops had killed about 20 militants in Rafah, southern Gaza.

On Wednesday, dead and wounded including bloodied children arrived at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis after an Israeli strike.

“I was not pro-Hamas but now I support them and I want to fight,” one grieving man shouted.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

U.S. special envoy Amos Hochstein meets with Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati in Beirut, Lebanon August 14, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Visiting U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein warned on Wednesday (August 14) the clock was ticking for a Gaza ceasefire that could also help end 10 months of cross-border exchanges between Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Israel.

His Lebanon trip comes a day before ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel are set to resume, with top diplomats scrambling to avert all-out war after Iran and Hezbollah vowed revenge for recent high-profile killings.

Also Read: A new round of Gaza cease-fire talks is starting, why is a deal so elusive?

Mr. Hochstein told a Beirut news conference that he and parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally, discussed “the framework agreement that’s on the table for a Gaza ceasefire, and he and I agreed there is no more time to waste and there’s no more valid excuses from any party for any further delay”.

“The deal would also help enable a diplomatic resolution here in Lebanon and that would prevent an outbreak of a wider war,” Mr. Hochstein said.

“We have to take advantage of this window for diplomatic action and diplomatic solutions. That time is now.”

Late last month, an Israeli strike killed top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a stronghold of the group, just hours before Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran in an attack blamed on Israel.

“The more time goes by of escalated tensions… the more the odds and the chances go up for accidents, for mistakes, for inadvertent targets to be hit that could easily cause escalation that gets out of control,” Hochstein warned.

Diplomatic resolution ‘achievable’

“Here in Lebanon we believe we can get to (the) end of the conflict now, today. We recognise that there are those who want to tie it to other conflicts. That is not our position,” Mr. Hochstein said.

In Focus podcast | Why is Israel not OK with the Gaza ceasefire plan that was accepted by Hamas?

“We continue to believe that a diplomatic resolution is achievable because we continue to believe that no one truly wants a full-scale war between Lebanon and Israel,” Mr. Hochstein said.

Hezbollah has repeatedly said it would only end hostilities once a Gaza ceasefire deal has been reached.

The U.S. envoy also met Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who warned in a statement that “Israeli intransigence is threatening efforts to stop the war”.

Last week, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said his group and Iran were “obliged to respond” to Israel “whatever the consequences” after the killings of Shukr and Haniyeh.

On Tuesday, Lebanon’s pro-Hezbollah newspaper Al-Akhbar published a report headlined “Don’t welcome the Israeli mediator”, accusing Hochstein of providing assurances before Shukr’s killing that Israel would not strike Beirut’s southern suburbs.

The Hamas ally has traded near daily fire with the Israeli army since the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack on Israel which triggered the Gaza war.

The violence has killed some 568 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters but also including at least 118 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, 22 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed, according to army figures.