Gaza war rages as Hamas studies ceasefire proposal
Under the truce plan, fighting would stop for 6 weeks, hostages would be exchanged and up to 500 aid trucks would enter Gaza Strip per day
GAZA STRIP: Israel bombed targets in Gaza on Tuesday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted the army will destroy Hamas despite ongoing Cairo talks towards a ceasefire and hostage deal.
More than six months into the war, Hamas said it was “studying” a new proposal for a temporary truce, submitted during the talks with US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators.
Under the plan, fighting would stop for six weeks, 40 women and child hostages would be exchanged for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, and up to 500 aid trucks would enter Gaza per day, a Hamas source said.
Hamas said it “appreciates” the mediators’ latest efforts but accused Israel of failing to respond to its long-standing demands, including a full withdrawal of forces from Gaza.
Netanyahu stressed — despite growing pressure from top ally the United States — that Israel would pursue the twin goals of bringing home the hostages and destroying Hamas after its October 7 attack.
He said Israeli forces would storm Gaza’s far-southern city of Rafah on the Egyptian border, despite global concern for the fate of up to 1.5 million Palestinians sheltering there.
The Israeli premier said: “This victory requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there.
US officials renewed their objections to a Rafah operation, following a phone call last week between President Joe Biden and Netanyahu.
“We have made clear to Israel that we think a full-scale military invasion of Rafah would have an enormously harmful effect on those civilians and that it would ultimately hurt Israel’s security,” said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
Israel has invited tenders for 40,000 large tents, according to a document on the defence ministry website — part of its preparations to evacuate Rafah ahead of an offensive, a government source told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The war broke out with Hamas’s October 7 attack against Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli figures. Palestinian militants also took more than 250 hostages, 129 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 33,207 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
While the war has destroyed swathes of Gaza, levelling entire city blocks, an Israeli siege has pushed many of its 2.4 million people to the brink of famine.
Israel, under intense US pressure to step up aid deliveries, on Monday allowed in 419 aid trucks, a daily record since the start of the war, said the Israeli defence ministry body COGAT.
Meanwhile, Turkey said it would impose trade restrictions on Israel, covering cement and steel construction materials, sparking an Israeli vow to to take retaliatory steps.
Also, Nicaragua has brought Israel’s ally Germany before the International Court of Justice to demand emergency measures to stop Berlin from sending Israel weapons and other assistance.
Lawyers for Nicaragua argued that Germany is in breach of the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention, set up in the wake of the Holocaust. Germany’s representative has rejected the claim and told the court in The Hague on Tuesday that “our history is the reason why Israel’s security has been at the core of German foreign policy”.