Israeli strikes in Gaza killed 29 people, including five children, overnight and into Sunday, health officials said, while US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel to finalise a cease-fire deal that could help ease regional tensions.
The US and fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar have said they are getting closer to a deal after two days of talks in Doha, while Israeli officials have expressed cautious optimism. But Hamas in a statement on Sunday accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of setting new conditions, including refusing to fully withdraw troops from Gaza.
The proposed resolution calls for a three-step process in which Hamas will release all hostages kidnapped during the October 7 attack that sparked the deadliest war between Israel and the Palestinians. In return, Israel will withdraw its troops from Gaza and release Palestinian prisoners.
The war has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, displaced many of the area’s 2.3 million residents and experts have warned of famine and the spread of diseases such as polio.
“It’s like we’re living a primitive life,” said Sanaa Akella, a displaced Palestinian living in the central town of Deir al-Balah, where some streets are flooded with sewage.
Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped about 250 others in the October 7 offensive. About 110 of them are believed to still be in Gaza, though Israeli officials say about a third of them are dead. More than 100 hostages were released during a week-long ceasefire in November.
The Israeli bombing also included an attack on a home in Deir al-Balah, killing a woman and her six children, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. An Associated Press reporter counted the bodies there.
The children’s grandfather, Mohammad Awad Khattab, said his daughter is a teacher and the youngest child is 18 months old. The hospital said the other five children are 10 years old.
“Six children have become body parts. They were put in the same bag,” Khattab told reporters. “What did they do? Did they kill any Jews? … Will this bring security to Israel?”
At least four people were killed in another attack east of Deir al-Balah, according to an AP journalist at the hospital. An attack in the northern town of Jabalia targeted two apartments, killing two men, a woman and her daughter, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Nine people were killed in two other attacks in central Gaza, according to al-Awda Hospital. One person was killed in an attack in Nuseirat, the hospital said.
Four members of a family, including two women, were killed in the attack near the southern city of Khan Younis late Saturday, according to Nasser Hospital.
Israel says it targets only militants and blames Hamas for civilian deaths because the group places fighters, weapons, tunnels and rockets in residential areas. But Israeli bombing has wiped out entire families and orphaned thousands of children.
Mediation efforts gained new momentum after the targeted killing of two top militants last month, both alleged to be from Israel, and vows by Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah to take revenge, raising fears of a wider war in the Middle East.
A U.S. official said on Friday that mediators were preparing to begin implementing the latest cease-fire proposal, and Netanyahu’s office expressed “cautious optimism” that an agreement could be reached.
An Israeli delegation is headed to Cairo on Sunday for further talks, and Blinken will meet Netanyahu on Monday. The State Department said Blinken will travel there to meet Egyptian officials on Tuesday, and could stop in at least one other regional country.
Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting that there were some areas where Israel could be flexible and some areas where it would not be flexible. “We are in talks and there is no scenario in which we just keep giving and giving,” he said.
Hamas has cast doubt on whether a deal is going to be reached, saying the latest proposal differs significantly from a previous one it had accepted in principle. Hamas has rejected Israeli demands for a permanent military presence on the Gaza-Egypt border and a line dividing Gaza in two, where Israeli forces would search Palestinians returning to their homes. Israel says both are needed to prevent militants from re-arming and returning to the north.
Israel has shown flexibility over withdrawing from the border corridor, and a meeting between Egyptian and Israeli military officials is scheduled for next week to agree on a withdrawal mechanism, said two Egyptian officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private talks.
In Lebanon, three UN peacekeepers were slightly injured when an explosion hit their vehicle near the southern village of Yarin. The peacekeeping mission said the incident was being investigated.
Since the war in Gaza began, Hezbollah has launched almost daily drone and rocket attacks across the border, resulting in an ever-escalating cycle of violence.
One person was killed in a bomb blast on a Tel Aviv street on Sunday night and police are investigating the matter.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which has also seen a surge in violence, gunmen marched in a funeral procession for two Hamas commanders killed in an Israeli air strike in Jenin a day earlier.