Scores of Gazans killed as progress eyed in Paris talks
PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: Fresh overnight strikes on the Gaza Strip killed dozens of people, the Hamas-run territory’s Health Ministry said on Saturday, as Israel’s spy chief joined talks in Paris seeking to unblock negotiations on a truce.
The negotiations come after a plan for a postwar Gaza unveiled by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drew criticism from key ally the United States and was rejected by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank.
They also come alongside deepening fears for Gaza’s civilians. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA, said Gazans were “in extreme peril while the world watches.”
Hamas said on Saturday morning that Israeli forces had launched more than 70 strikes on civilian homes in the cities of Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis and Rafah, among other locations, over the previous 24 hours. The Health Ministry said at least 92 people were killed.
The Palestinian Islamist movement that has ruled Gaza since 2007 also said fighting was raging in the northern district of Zeitun.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) Television footage showed distraught Gazans on Friday lining up for food in the city of Jabalia, also in the territory’s devastated north, and protesting over dire living conditions.
“We have no water, no flour, and we are very tired because of hunger. Our backs and eyes hurt because of fire and smoke,” said one of them, Oum Wajdi Salha.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warned that “the elevated risk of famine in Gaza is projected to increase” without enough food and water, as well as health services.
Postwar plan
The war began after Hamas’ unprecedented attacks on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
Hamas fighters also took hostages, 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 30 presumed dead, the Israeli government has said.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 29,606 people, mostly women and children, latest figures from Gaza’s Health Ministry showed.
An Israeli airstrike on Friday destroyed the Gaza home of well-known Palestinian comedian Mahmoud Zuaiter, killing at least 23 people and wounding dozens more, the ministry said.
Netanyahu unveiled this week a plan for postwar Gaza that envisages civil affairs being run by Palestinian officials without links to Hamas.
The plan says that, even after the conflict, Israel’s army would have “indefinite freedom” to operate throughout Gaza to prevent any resurgence of terror activity, according to the proposals.
It also says Israel will move ahead with a plan, already underway, to establish a security buffer zone inside Gaza along the territory’s border.
Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan dismissed the plan as unworkable.
“When it comes to the day after in the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu is presenting ideas which he knows fully well will never succeed,” he told reporters in Lebanon’s capital Beirut.
The plan also drew criticism from the US. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Washington had been “consistently clear with our Israeli counterparts” about what was needed in postwar Gaza.
“The Palestinian people should have a voice and a vote ... through a revitalized Palestinian Authority,” he said, adding that the US also did not “believe in a reduction of the size of Gaza.”
Paris delegation
An Israeli delegation led by Mossad intelligence agency chief David Barnea was in France’s capital for a fresh push toward a deal to return the remaining hostages.
Barnea would be joined by Ronen Bar, his counterpart at the domestic Shin Bet security agency, Israeli media reported.
The US, Egypt and Qatar have all been deeply involved in past negotiations aimed at securing a truce and prisonerhostage exchanges.
Pressure has been mounting on Netanyahu’s government to negotiate a ceasefire and secure the hostages’ release after more than four months of war. A group representing the captives’ families planned what it billed as a “huge rally” to demand swifter action on Saturday night.
White House envoy Brett McGurk held talks this week with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in the western city of Tel Aviv after speaking to other mediators in Cairo who had met Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh.
A Hamas source said the new plan proposes a six-week pause in the conflict and the release of between 200 and 300 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 35 to 40 hostages being held by Hamas.