A senior Hamas official told AFP that a delegation from the Palestinian group would discuss with mediators a proposal for a six-week truce, after a US official said Israel had “more or less accepted” its terms.

Envoys from the United States, Qatar and Hamas have arrived in Cairo, state-linked media reported, as all sides have been scrambling to lock in a truce before Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month that begins on March 10 or 11.

The Hamas official said that if Israel were to meet its demands — which include a military withdrawal from Gaza and stepped-up humanitarian aid — this would “pave the way for an agreement within the next 24-48 hours”.

The health ministry in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip said at least 90 Palestinians had been killed in the past 24 hours, including 14 family members whose house in the southern Rafah refugee camp had been hit.

In a sign of the worsening humanitarian crisis in the narrow coastal territory, ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said at least 16 children had died of malnutrition in recent days as “famine spreads in the Strip’s north”.

Israel’s top ally the United States on Saturday began airdropping aid into war-ravaged Gaza, which has faced dwindling deliveries of relief supplies across its land borders.

The Hamas official said the group would demand “the entry of at least 400 to 500 trucks per day” carrying food, medicine and fuel as part of the truce deal.

The US official, speaking to reporters late Saturday, said “there’s a framework deal” for a ceasefire which “the Israelis have more or less accepted”.

Israel had yet to confirm that it has accepted the truce plan or whether it would attend the Cairo talks.

A ceasefire could start “today if Hamas agrees to release the defined category of vulnerable hostages… the sick, the wounded, elderly and women,” the US official said.

“Right now, the ball is in the camp of Hamas.”

Osama Hamdan, a Lebanon-based Hamas official, told Qatar’s Al-Araby TV that the group insisted on a complete, rather than “temporary”, ceasefire and on “ending the aggression against our people”.

‘Acute food insecurity’

With fears of widespread famine mounting, US military planes parachuted “over 38,000 meals” into Gaza, US Central Command said, joining several Arab and European government that have carried out airdrops since November.

But officials and aid groups have said such operations cannot replace overland aid access.

The UN Security Council voiced concern over “alarming levels of acute food insecurity”, highlighted by a desperate rush for aid from a convoy of trucks in Gaza City on Thursday that ended in the deaths of dozens of Palestinians.

In a statement on Saturday, the council stressed “the need to take all necessary measures to protect civilians” and urged “parties to the conflict to allow, facilitate and enable the immediate, rapid, safe, sustained and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale”.

Several foreign leaders have called for an investigation into the aid truck storming, which the Gaza health ministry said resulted in the deaths of 116 people.

The ministry said Israeli forces shot civilians, but the Israeli army insisted most died in a stampede or crush.

A United Nations team that visited a Gaza City hospital reported seeing “a large number” of gunshot wounds among Palestinians in the aftermath of the incident.

The aid convoy deaths pushed the war death toll in Gaza to at least 30,410, mostly women and children, the health ministry said Sunday.

The war began on October 7 with an unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.

Gaza militants also abducted 250 hostages, of whom 130 remain in captivity according to Israel, a figure that includes 31 presumed dead.

50 targets

An AFP correspondent in southern Gaza, near the border with Egypt, said several air strikes hit Rafah and Khan Yunis during the night.

The Hamas government media office also reported intense tank shelling in northern Gaza.

The Israeli military said its forces had carried out “an extensive series of strikes on terror targets” in Khan Yunis, south Gaza’s main city that has become the focus of fighting in recent weeks.

About 50 targets including “underground terrorist infrastructure” and military sites were hit “within six minutes”, the army said.

In Rafah, where more than one million Gazans displaced by the war have sought refuge, Israeli bombardment late Saturday killed 11 people at a makeshift camp near a hospital, the health ministry said.

The Israeli army said it had carried out a “precision strike” in the area that targeted Palestinian militants.

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has faced mounting calls to secure the release of the remaining hostages, as well as pressure from a resurgent anti-government protest movement.

Rallies were held on Saturday in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, where a relative of one of the captives said he hoped freeing them was a top priority.

Israeli officials “must seal this deal no matter what,” said Eyal Kalderon, cousin of hostage Ofer Kalderon.

“I don’t know if they will have another chance. It’s now or maybe never.”

The post Gaza Ceasefire Negotiations Resume Amid Escalating Violence in Cairo first appeared on MegaIcon Magazine.

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The United Nations warned of a looming “unprecedented avalanche of human suffering” inside the Gaza Strip, after weeks of relentless Israeli bombing, while the General Assembly called for an “immediate humanitarian truce”.

Israeli soldiers ride armoured vehicles near the southern Israeli city of Sderot on October 28, 2023, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. (Photo by Aris MESSINIS / AFP)

“We are confronting an Israeli ground incursion in Beit Hanoun (in the northern Gaza Strip) and east Bureij (in the centre) and violent engagements are taking place on the ground,” Hamas’s armed wing the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said.

Israeli military spokesman Major Nir Dinar told AFP: “Our troops are operating inside Gaza as they did yesterday.”

Israel launched its bombardment of Gaza after Hamas gunmen stormed across the border on October 7, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and taking nearly 230 others hostage, according to Israeli officials.

The health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said Friday that Israeli strikes had now killed 7,326 people, more than 3,000 of them children.

Israeli soldiers ride an armoured vehicle near the southern Israeli city of Sderot on October 28, 2023, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. – Battles raged in Gaza on October 28, 2023, as Israel’s army said it expanded ground operations after intensifying its bombardment of the Palestinian territory three weeks after the deadliest attack in the country’s history. (Photo by Aris MESSINIS / AFP)

With tens of thousands of troops massed along the Gaza border ahead of an expected full-blown invasion, Israeli forces had also made limited ground incursions on Wednesday and Thursday nights.

“The ground forces are extending the ground operations tonight,” military spokesman Daniel Hagari said late Friday.

The Israeli army said it had increased its strikes “in a very significant way”, while the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said on Telegram it responded with “salvos of rockets”.

In overnight raids, Israeli fighter jets hit 150 “terror tunnels, underground combat spaces and additional underground infrastructure” and “several Hamas terrorists were killed”, the army said on Saturday morning.

 ‘Why are they bombing us?’

AFP live footage had shown air strike after air strike light up the night sky of northern Gaza late Friday as thick black smoke clouded the horizon.

In a bombed-out street in the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood, 50-year-old Om Walid Basal said her apartment block had been destroyed by Israel.

An Israeli air force AH-65 Apache attack helicopter flies near the border with the Gaza Strip close to Israel’s southern city of Ashkeon on October 28, 2023, amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. (Photo by Yuri CORTEZ / AFP)

“This was our house. We lived here just with our children. It was full of children,” she said.

“Why are they bombing us? Why are they destroying our homes?”

Hamas insisted it was “ready” for an invasion.

“If (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu decides to enter Gaza tonight, the resistance is ready,” Ezzat al-Rishaq, a senior member of the Hamas political bureau, said on Telegram on Friday.

“The remains of his soldiers will be swallowed up by the land of Gaza.”

 Internet cut

Hamas said all internet connections and communications across Gaza had been cut, and accused Israel of taking the measure “to perpetrate massacres with bloody retaliatory strikes from the air, land and sea”.

Human Rights Watch also warned the near-total telecommunications blackout in Gaza risks providing cover for “mass atrocities”.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said the communications outage had disrupted ambulance services.

A dense cloud of smoke from the bombing of the Gaza Strip invades the Israeli border city of Ashkelon on the night of October 27, 2023 as battles between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement continue. (Photo by Yuri CORTEZ / AFP)

“We have completely lost contact with the operations room in the Gaza Strip and all our teams operating there,” it said on X, formerly Twitter.

Lynne Hastings, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, also stressed on X that “hospitals & humanitarian operations can’t continue without communications”.

Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf, whose inlaws are trapped in Gaza, voiced alarm at the communications shutdown.

“Telecommunications have been cut. We can’t get through to our family who have been trapped in this war zone for almost 3 weeks,” he wrote on X.

“We can only pray they survive the night.”

 ‘Stop the war’

The reports of ground fighting came after the UN General Assembly called on Friday for an “immediate humanitarian truce” in Gaza.

The non-binding resolution received overwhelming support, with 120 votes in favour, 14 against and 45 abstentions.

“Today the General Assembly declared a call: stop the war,” the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, told reporters at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

It was also welcomed by Hamas, but it was harshly criticised by Israel and the United States for failing to mention Hamas, with Israeli ambassador Gilad Erdan calling it an “infamy”.

A picture taken from near the southern Israeli city of Sderot on October 28, 2023, shows an Israeli Merkava tank stationed on a hill top close to the Israeli border with the northern Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. – Battles raged in Gaza on October 28, 2023, as Israel’s army said it expanded ground operations after intensifying its bombardment of the Palestinian territory three weeks after the deadliest attack in the country’s history. (Photo by Aris MESSINIS / AFP)

Washington had earlier said it supports a “humanitarian pause” so aid can get into Gaza.

Israel’s bombardment has displaced more than 1.4 million people inside the crowded territory, according to the UN, even as supplies of food, water and power to Gaza have been almost completely cut off.

And Israel has blocked all deliveries of fuel, saying it would be exploited by Hamas to manufacture weapons and explosives.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that misery was “growing by the minute”.

“I repeat my call for a humanitarian ceasefire, the unconditional release of all hostages, and the delivery of life-saving supplies,” Guterres said.

“Without a fundamental change, the people of Gaza will face an unprecedented avalanche of human suffering.”

 ‘Nothing more than crumbs’

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has cautioned that “many more will die” in Gaza from catastrophic shortages.

“People in Gaza are dying, they are not only dying from bombs and strikes, soon many more will die from the consequences of (the) siege,” said UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini.

A first tranche of critically needed aid was allowed in last weekend, but only 74 trucks have crossed since then. The UN says an average of 500 trucks entered Gaza every day before the conflict.

“These few trucks are nothing more than crumbs that will not make a difference,” Lazzarini said.

Between the bombardments and the fuel shortages, 12 of Gaza’s 35 hospitals have been forced to close, and UNRWA said it has had to “significantly reduce its operations”.

Israel’s military accused Hamas of using hospitals in Gaza as operations centres for directing attacks, an allegation Hamas swiftly denied.

A picture taken from near the southern Israeli city of Sderot on October 28, 2023, shows an Israeli Merkava tank rolling close to the Israeli border with the northern Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. – Battles raged in Gaza on October 28, 2023, as Israel’s army said it expanded ground operations after intensifying its bombardment of the Palestinian territory three weeks after the deadliest attack in the country’s history. (Photo by Aris MESSINIS / AFP)

The growing toll in Gaza has spurred demonstrations in the occupied West Bank and across the Muslim world, but also in a number of Western countries.

Late Friday, hundreds of people were arrested when police broke up a large demonstration of mostly Jewish New Yorkers who had taken over the main hall of Grand Central station to protest Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and demanding a ceasefire.

Violence has also risen sharply in the occupied West Bank since the October 7 attacks, with more than 100 Palestinians killed and nearly 2,000 wounded, according to the UN.

The post Ground Battles Rage In Gaza After Israel Escalates Bombing first appeared on MegaIcon Magazine.

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