A ceasefire in the Gaza Strip could be signed in the coming days, the source says, as Israeli attacks continue
The United States, joined by Arab mediators, tried to broker a deal on Wednesday between Israel and Hamas to end the 14-month-old war in the Gaza Strip. Israeli strikes killed at least 20 Palestinians overnight, doctors said.
A Palestinian official close to the talks said on Wednesday that mediators had narrowed loopholes in most clauses of the agreement. He said that Israel has put forward conditions that Hamas rejected, but he would not disclose the details.
A ceasefire in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and the release of hostages held in Gaza could be signed in the coming days, sources close to the talks in Cairo said on Tuesday.
Doctors said at least 10 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in the northern town of Beit Lahiya, and six people were killed in separate airstrikes in Gaza City, Nuseyrat camp in the central regions and Rafah near the border with Egypt.
In the city of Beit Hanoun in the north of the Gaza Strip, doctors said that 4 people died as a result of an air attack on a house. There was no immediate comment from a spokesman for the Israeli army.
Israeli forces have been operating since October in the towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, as well as the nearby Jabaliya camp, which the military says is aimed at preventing the regrouping of Hamas militants.
Palestinians accuse Israel of carrying out acts of “ethnic cleansing” to depopulate the northern edge of the enclave to create a buffer zone. Israel denies this.
Hamas does not disclose its casualties, and the Palestinian Ministry of Health does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants in its daily death toll.
On Wednesday, the Israeli military said it had shot down a number of Hamas militants who were planning an imminent attack on Israeli forces operating in Jabaliya.
Later on Wednesday, the director of Al-Awda Hospital in Jabaliya, Mohammad Saleh, said nearby Israeli shelling damaged the facility, injuring seven medical staff and one patient.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment.
In the central Gaza camp of Bureij, Palestinian families began to leave some districts after the army sent text and voice messages to the mobile phones of some of the population there citing a new evacuation order in X and new rockets fired from the area by Palestinian militants. .
In its new report, Amnesty International has accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza war. Israel has strongly denied this allegation and said it respects international law.
The ceasefire is accelerating
The US administration, mediators from Egypt and Qatar participated intensive efforts in recent days to advance negotiations before US President Joe Biden leaves office next month.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog met with Adam Beiler, the newly elected US President Donald Trump’s hostage representative, in Jerusalem. Trump has threatened to “release all hell” if Hamas does not release the hostages by January 20, the day Trump returns to the White House.
CIA Director William Burns was scheduled to travel to Doha, Qatar, on Wednesday for talks with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani to bridge the gap between Israel and Hamas. The CIA declined to comment.
The Israeli talks were held in Doha on Monday to bridge gaps between Israel and Hamas over the deal signed by Biden in May.
More than 14 months after the Israel-Hamas war, Gaza is slipping into lawlessness, and aid groups say the fallout threatens the survival of up to two million people.
Repeated and unsuccessful talks have been held over the past year, with Israel insisting on maintaining a military presence in Gaza and Hamas refusing to release the hostages until the troops are withdrawn.
The Gaza war, which has left nearly 1,200 people dead and more than 250 hostages taken as a result of Hamas attacks on communities in southern Israel, has sent shockwaves through the Middle East and isolated Israel internationally.
Israel’s campaign has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, displaced most of its 2.3 million population and left much of the coastal enclave in ruins.
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