Hamas said on Friday it was reviewing a US proposal to restore the Gaza ceasefire as Israel intensified military operations to press the Palestinian militant group to free remaining Israeli hostages.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff’s “bridge” plan, presented last week, aims to extend the ceasefire into April, beyond Ramadan and Passover, to allow time for negotiations on a permanent cessation of hostilities.
Three days after Israel abandoned the two-month-old truce, Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said the military was intensifying its air, land and sea strikes and would also evacuate civilians to the southern part of Gaza.
Mr Katz said Israel would continue its campaign until Hamas released more hostages and was totally defeated.
However, while Israeli air strikes inflicted serious damage on Hamas this week, killing its Gaza government chief and other top officials, Palestinian and Israeli sources say Hamas has shown it can absorb major losses and still fight and govern.
Hamas said it was still debating Mr Witkoff’s proposal and other ideas, with the goal of reaching a deal on prisoner releases, ending the war, and securing a complete Israeli military withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
A Palestinian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Egypt had also put forward a bridging proposal, but Hamas had yet to respond. Two Egyptian security sources said Egypt had suggested setting a timeline for the release of the remaining hostages alongside a deadline for a full Israeli pullout from Gaza with US guarantees. The sources said the US had signalled initial approval.
A first phase of the truce ended at the start of this month, but Israel and Hamas could not overcome differences over terms for launching the second phase. Hamas held up further hostage releases and Israeli military action then resumed.
After two months of relative calm, Gazans were again fleeing for their lives under Israel’s new, all-out air and ground campaign, accompanied by another halt to aid deliveries.
Mr Katz said the longer Hamas kept refusing to free remaining hostages, the more territory it would lose. Of the more than 250 seized in the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023, 59 remain in Gaza, 24 of whom are thought to be alive.
Israeli air strikes on Tuesday killed more than 400 Palestinians, one of the deadliest days of the 17-month-old war.
On Friday, five people including three children were killed in an Israeli air strike that hit a house in the Tuffah district of Gaza City in the enclave’s north, while two people – a woman and her daughter – were killed by tank fire in Abassan near Khan Younis in the south, according to Palestinian medics.
Hours later, the Israeli military said it had intercepted two projectiles from northern Gaza after alerts were activated in the Israeli city of Ashkelon. No Palestinian group immediately claimed responsibility.
The United States told the UN Security Council that Hamas was to blame for the deaths since hostilities resumed.
“Hamas bears full responsibility for the ongoing war in Gaza and for the resumption of hostilities. Every death would have been avoided had Hamas accepted the bridge proposal that the United States offered last Wednesday,” acting US ambassador Dorothy Shea told the council.
The UN’s Palestinian relief agency Unrwa, one of the largest providers of food aid in Gaza, said it had enough flour to distribute for only the next six days.
“We can stretch that by giving people less, but we are talking days, not weeks,” Unrwa official Sam Rose told reporters in Geneva by video link from Gaza.
The humanitarian situation in Gaza was once again alarming, Unrwa said. “Six of 25 bakeries that the World Food Programme were supporting had to close down,” Mr Rose added.
“This is the longest period since the start of conflict in October 2023 that no supplies whatsoever have entered Gaza. The progress we made as an aid system over the last six weeks of the ceasefire is being reversed.”
Israel’s blockade has pushed up prices of fuel and essential foods, forcing many to ration their meals.
The war began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israeli communities near the Gaza border on October 7th, 2023, killing 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies.
More than 49,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s ensuing attacks on Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, with much of the densely populated territory reduced to rubble. − Reuters
