Israel carried out deadly air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, marking the 10th month of the ongoing war. The violence continued throughout the Palestinian territory, despite renewed diplomatic efforts to establish a ceasefire.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement fired another 20 rockets at northern Israel, injuring one person. These cross-border attacks were launched in solidarity with Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group controlling Gaza.
Amid the escalating conflict, Egypt has taken on a mediating role. Al-Qahera News reported that Cairo was hosting Israeli and American delegations to discuss the outstanding points for a ceasefire and hostage release deal, citing an unnamed high-level official source.
Mediators were in contact with Hamas, according to the news report. Intensive Egyptian meetings this week with all parties aimed to push efforts for a truce.
Israel has also stated that it would send a delegation in the coming days to continue talks with Qatari mediators. However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman said on Friday that “gaps” remained with Hamas.
US President Joe Biden announced a plan in late May that included an initial six-week truce and the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners. Talks subsequently stalled, but a US official said Thursday that a new proposal from Hamas “moves the process forward and may provide the basis for closing the deal”.
Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan told AFP that the group’s new ideas had been “conveyed by the mediators to the American side, which welcomed them and passed them on to the Israeli side”. He added that “now the ball is in the Israeli court”.
Despite the ongoing diplomatic efforts, the fighting and bombardment in besieged Gaza continued unabated on Sunday. Medics and emergency services in the Hamas-run territory reported yet more deaths in several strikes. The Palestinian Red Crescent said the bodies of six people, including two children, were taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah.
Paramedics reported six people killed in one strike on a house in Gaza City and three in another elsewhere in Gaza’s largest urban area.
The Israeli army said that in Shujaiya, its “troops eliminated several terrorists, dismantled terror infrastructure sites and located numerous weapons, including explosive devices, AK-47 rifles, machine guns and pistols”. They also reported that 30 “terrorists” had been killed in far-southern Rafah over the past day and that Israeli forces had carried out an operation in nearby Khan Yunis where Hamas had taken up position in a municipality building.
On Saturday, the Gaza health ministry said 16 people were killed in a strike on a school run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA that was sheltering displaced people in Nuseirat, in central Gaza. The Israeli military said its aircraft had targeted “terrorists” operating around the Al-Jawni school.
Efforts towards a truce continue with US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators hoping to halt the worst-ever Gaza war, which has caused mass civilian casualties and devastated the coastal territory since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.
