Push for Gaza ceasefire stepped up
PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: International mediators were with Hamas negotiators in Cairo on Tuesday for talks on a truce to pause nearly five months of fighting in the Gaza Strip before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins early next week.
Envoys from the Palestinian militant group and the United States were expected to meet with Qatari and Egyptian mediators for a third day of negotiations on a six-week truce, the exchange of dozens of remaining hostages for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and increased aid to Gaza.
Israeli negotiators have so far stayed away from the talks despite growing diplomatic pressure for a truce to take effect before Ramadan.
Israeli media reported that the country’s negotiating team boycotted the talks after Hamas did not provide a list of living hostages.
Senior Hamas leader Bassem Naim told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to blame for obstructing the talks and said it was for the US to stop the war before Ramadan, saying the “ball is in their court.”
Israel has said it believes 130 of the 250 captives taken by Hamas in the October 7 attacks that triggered the war remain in Gaza, but that 31 have been killed.
As conditions in the besieged Palestinian territory deteriorate and the specter of famine looms, Israel has faced increasingly sharp rebukes from Washington, its top ally.
US Vice President Kamala Harris expressed “deep concern about the humanitarian conditions in Gaza” during talks in Washington on Monday with Israeli War Cabinet member Benny Gantz.
The same day, the World Health Organization (WHO) said an aid mission to two hospitals in northern Gaza had found children dying of starvation, amid dire shortages of food, fuel and medicines.
“The lack of food resulted in the deaths of 10 children,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus after the United Nations health agency visited the AlAwda and Kamal Adwan hospitals over the weekend.
Fighting in Gaza continued, with authorities reporting dozens
of Israeli air strikes near the European Hospital in Hamad, near Gaza’s main southern city of Khan Younis.
The Israeli army said it was conducting targeted raids in Hamad and had captured dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters who were hiding among civilians.
Its jets had struck 50 Hamas targets across the Strip in the past day, it added.
The Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory said 97 people had been killed overnight, mostly women and children.
UN tensions
Meanwhile, tensions between Israel and the UN erupted anew, with Israel recalling its ambassador over the handling of allegations of sexual assault by Hamas militants during the October 7 attacks.
Israel accused the UN of taking too long to respond to the claims after the world body published on Monday a report saying there were “reasonable grounds to believe” rapes were committed in the Hamas attacks and that hostages taken to Gaza had also been raped.
“In most of these incidents, victims first subjected to rape were then killed, and at least two incidents relate to the rape of women’s corpses,” the report said.
Shortly before the report’s release, Israel said it was recalling its envoy Gilad Erdan over what it said was an attempt by the UN to “silence” reports of sexual violence by Hamas.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ spokesman Stephane Dujarric denied trying to suppress the report.
Israel previously accused 12 of the 13,000 Gaza staff of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) of involvement in the October 7 attacks.
UNRWA is at the center of efforts to provide humanitarian relief in Gaza, where aid groups warn of looming famine.
The agency said on Monday that members of its staff had reported “torture, severe ill-treatment, abuse and sexual exploitation” in Israeli custody, while the Israeli army accused it of employing more than 450 “terrorists.”
Phillipe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, has said Israel provided no evidence against his former employees.