More Gazans die as Israel mulls truce talks position
PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: At least 61 Palestinians were killed in fresh Israeli attacks overnight, the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said on Sunday, as Israel was preparing to send negotiators to new truce talks in Qatar.
Israel’s security cabinet and the smaller war cabinet were to meet to “decide on the mandate of the delegation in charge of the negotiations before its departure for Doha,” the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.
The statement did not specify when the delegation would leave for the latest round of talks, which comes after Hamas submitted a new proposal for a pause in fighting and new hostage releases.
More than five months of war and an Israeli siege have led to dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where the United Nations has repeatedly warned of famine looming for the coastal territory’s 2.4 million people.
As the flow of aid trucks into Gaza has slowed, a second ship was due to depart from Cyprus along a new maritime corridor to bring food and relief goods, Cypriot officials said.
On Saturday, the US charity group World Central Kitchen said its team had finished unloading supplies from a barge towed by the Spanish aid vessel Open Arms, which had pioneered the sea route.
The UN has reported particular difficulty in accessing northern Gaza, where residents say they have resorted to eating animal fodder and where some have stormed the few aid trucks that have made it through.
Shelling and clashes were reported in southern Gaza’s main city of Khan Younis and elsewhere.
The territory’s Health Ministry said 12 members of the same family, whose house in the city of Deir al-Balah was hit, were among those killed overnight.
Most Gazans displaced by the fighting have sought refuge in the southernmost city of Rafah on the Egyptian border, where Israel has threatened to launch a ground offensive without giving a timeline.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has appealed to Israel “in the name of humanity” not to launch an assault on Rafah.
An evacuation planned by the Israeli army ahead of launching its assault was not a practical solution, he argued, noting that Palestinians there do not “have anywhere safe to move to.”
“This humanitarian catastrophe must not be allowed to worsen,” he said on X, formerly Twitter.
‘Hostage deal now’
The war began when Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, resulting in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, an AFP tally of official figures shows.
In retaliation, Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza that has killed at least 31,645 people in the territory, most of them women and children, the Health Ministry there said.
Palestinian militants also seized about 250 Israeli and foreign hostages in the October 7 attacks. Dozens were released during a weeklong truce in November, and Israel believes about 130 remain in Gaza, including 32 presumed dead.
Netanyahu has faced domestic pressure to secure the release of the captives, with protesters in the western city of Tel Aviv on Saturday carrying banners urging a “hostage deal now.”
“The civilians ... need to demand from their leaders to do the right thing,” said demonstrator Omer Keidar, 27.
The Hamas proposal calls for an Israeli withdrawal from “all cities and populated areas” in Gaza during a six-week truce and more humanitarian aid, said an official from the Palestinian group.
With the situation on the ground increasingly dire, aid donors have turned to deliveries by air or sea.
Multiple governments have begun daily airdrops of food over Gaza, while the new maritime corridor is to be complemented by a United States military-built temporary pier.
But air and sea missions are no alternative to land deliveries, UN agencies say. Humanitarian groups have cited Israeli restrictions as among the obstacles they face.
The US, which provides Israel with billions of dollars in military assistance, has also grown increasingly critical of Netanyahu over his handling of the war.
Washington has said it cannot support Israel’s long-threatened operation against Hamas in Rafah without a “credible, achievable, executable plan” to protect Palestinian civilians.