Gaza ceasefire hopes alive with more talks planned

DOHA/TEL AVIV, (Reuters) Mediators from the U.S., Qatar and Egypt scrambled to forge a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in their four-month-old war in the Gaza Strip after America's top diplomat on a Middle East mission said there was still hope for a deal.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he saw room for negotiation, and a Palestinian Hamas delegation led by senior official Khalil Al-Hayya was due to travel today to Cairo for ceasefire talks with Egypt and Qatar.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday rejected Hamas' latest offer, calling it "delusional," and Hamas urged Palestinian armed factions to go on fighting.

"There are clearly nonstarters in what (Hamas has) put forward," Blinken said on Wednesday at a latenight press conference in a Tel Aviv hotel, without specifying what the nonstarters were.

"But we also see space in what came back to pursue negotiations, to see if we can get to an agreement. That's what we intend to do."

Before heading back to the U.S., Blinken was due to hold meetings in Israel on Thursday, including with family members of hostages still held in Gaza who have clamoured for Netanyahu to make winning their freedom his top priority.

Hamas, the militant group that rules Gaza, proposed a ceasefire of 41/2 months, during which all hostages held in Gaza would go free, Israel would withdraw its troops from Gaza and an agreement would be reached on an end to the war.

The Hamas offer was a response to a proposal drawn up by U.S. and Israeli spy chiefs and delivered to Hamas last week by Qatari and Egyptian mediators.

Israel would be willing to let Hamas military leader Yahya Sinwar go into exile in exchange for the release of all hostages and an end to the Hamas government in Gaza, a half-dozen Israeli officials and senior advisers have told NBC News.

In response to the Hamas plan, Netanyahu renewed a pledge to destroy the Islamist movement, saying there was no alternative for Israel but to bring about its collapse.

"Surrendering to the delusional demands of Hamas ... will not only not bring the release of the hostages, it will invite another massacre. It will invite a grave disaster for the state of Israel that none of our citizens is willing to accept," the Israeli leader told reporters on Wednesday.

"Continued military pressure is a necessary condition for the release of the hostages," Netanyahu said.

Israel began its military offensive after Hamas militants from Gaza killed 1,200 people and took 253 hostages in southern Israel on Oct. 7.

Gaza's health ministry says at least 27,585 Palestinians have been confirmed killed, with thousands more feared buried under rubble in Israel's offensive since then.

In the only truce to date, lasting a week at the end of November, 110 hostages were released and Israel freed 240 Palestinian prisoners.

Netanyahu, whose domestic popularity is at rock bottom, faces public pressure to continue working with international mediators toward an agreement in Gaza.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Department's financial crimes unit yesterday proposed a plan to require real estate professionals to flag suspicious activity, in a bid to curb illicit funds flowing through residential real estate.

The plan, proposed by Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, would require reporting from real estate professionals involved in cash transactions for residential real estate.

Certain people involved in real estate closing would have to file and keep records of suspicious activity, according to FinCEN's proposal filed with the U.S. Federal Register.

BAGHDAD, (Reuters) - A commander from Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed armed group in Iraq that the Pentagon has blamed for attacking its troops, was killed in a U.S. strike yesterday, the U.S. military said.

"(U.S.) forces conducted a unilateral strike in Iraq in response to the attacks on U.S. service members, killing a Kataib Hezbollah commander responsible for directly planning and participating in attacks on U.S. forces in the region," a statement from the military said. It did not name the commander.

It added that there were no indications of civilian casualties.

Two security sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the commander was Abu Baqir al-Saadi, killed in a drone strike on a vehicle in eastern Baghdad.

One of the sources said three people were killed and that the vehicle targeted was used by Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a state security agency composed of dozens of armed groups, many of them close to Iran.

Kataib Hezbollah fighters and commanders are part of the PMF. Three U.S. troops were killed in January in a drone attack near the Jordan-Syria border that the Pentagon said bore the "footprints" of Kataib Hezbollah. The group then announced it was suspending military operations against U.S. troops in the region.

Iraq and Syria have witnessed near daily tit-for-tat attacks between hardline Iran-backed armed groups and U.S. forces stationed in the region since the Gaza war began in October.