The United States, along with Arab mediators, tried Wednesday to forge a deal between Israel and Hamas to end the 14-month war in the Gaza Strip, where Israeli strikes said at least 20 Palestinians were killed overnight.
A Palestinian official close to the negotiations said Wednesday that mediators had closed loopholes in most of the deal’s clauses. He said Israel had imposed conditions that Hamas rejected, but would not elaborate.
On Tuesday, sources close to the talks in Cairo said an agreement on a ceasefire and the release of hostages held in Gaza could be signed in the coming days in return for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Medics said an Israeli airstrike killed at least 10 people in a house in the northern city of Beit Lahiya, while six were killed in separate airstrikes in Gaza City, Nuseirat camp in central areas and Rafah, near the border with Egypt be.
Four people were killed in an airstrike on a house in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, according to medics. There was no immediate comment from Israeli military spokesman.
Israeli forces have been operating in the towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, as well as the nearby Jabalia camp, since October. The military’s goal was to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping.
Palestinians accuse Israel of carrying out “ethnic cleansing” to depopulate the northern edge of the enclave and create a buffer zone. Israel denies it.
Hamas does not report its losses, and the Palestinian Health Ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants in its daily death toll.
On Wednesday, the Israeli military said it had attacked a number of Hamas militants who were planning an imminent attack on Israeli forces operating in Jabalia.
Later on Wednesday, Muhammad Saleh, director of Al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia, said Israeli shelling nearby had damaged the facility and injured seven medics and a patient at the hospital.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
In the central Gaza camp of Bureij, Palestinian families began leaving some districts after the army released new evacuation orders on X and in written and audio messages sent to cell phones of some of the population there, citing new rocket fire by Palestinian militants from the area Area referred.
Amnesty International has accused the State of Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza war in a new report. Israel vehemently rejected this accusation and said it had respected international law.
The ceasefire is gaining momentum
The US government, together with mediators from Egypt and Qatar, has made arrangements intensive efforts in the last few days to advance talks before US President Joe Biden leaves office next month.
In Jerusalem, Israeli President Isaac Herzog met with Adam Boehler, US President-elect Donald Trump’s designated envoy for hostage issues. Trump has threatened that “all hell will break loose” if Hamas does not release its hostages by January 20, the day Trump returns to the White House.
CIA Director William Burns was expected in Doha, Qatar, on Wednesday for talks with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani about bridging the remaining rift between Israel and Hamas, other knowledgeable sources said. The CIA declined to comment.
Israeli negotiators were in Doha on Monday to close gaps between Israel and Hamas on a deal Biden outlined in May.
More than 14 months after the start of the Israel-Hamas war, Gaza is descending into lawlessness, and aid groups say the collapse threatens the survival of up to two million people.
Last year there were repeated rounds of talks, all of which failed. Israel insisted on maintaining a military presence in Gaza and Hamas refused to release hostages until troops withdrew.
The war in Gaza, sparked by a Hamas-led attack on communities in southern Israel that killed around 1,200 people and kidnapped more than 250 hostages, has sent shockwaves across the Middle East and left Israel isolated internationally.
The Israeli campaign has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, displaced most of the 2.3 million residents and reduced much of the coastal enclave to rubble.
