US-led ceasefire efforts in Gaza appeared to gain momentum after nearly 21 months of war, as prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel on Sunday will send a negotiating team to talks in Qatar.
The statement also asserted that Hamas was seeking “unacceptable” changes to the proposal.
US president Donald Trump has pushed for an agreement and will host Mr Netanyahu at the White House on Monday to discuss a deal.
Inside Gaza, Israeli air strikes killed 14 Palestinians and another 10 were killed while seeking food aid, hospital officials in the embattled enclave said.
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And two US aid workers with the Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation were injured in an attack at a food distribution site, which the organisation blamed on Hamas, without providing evidence.
Weary Palestinians expressed cautious hope after Hamas gave a “positive” response late Friday to the latest US proposal for a 60-day truce but said further talks were needed on implementation.
“We are tired. Enough starvation, enough closure of crossing points. We want to sleep in calm where we don’t hear warplanes or drones or shelling,” said Jamalat Wadi, one of Gaza’s hundreds of thousands of displaced people, speaking in Deir al-Balah.
She squinted in the sun during a summer heatwave of more than 30 degrees.
Hamas has sought guarantees that the initial truce would lead to a total end to the war and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
Previous negotiations have stalled over Hamas demands of guarantees that further negotiations would lead to the war’s end, while Mr Netanyahu has insisted Israel would resume fighting to ensure the militant group’s destruction.
“Send a delegation with a full mandate to bring a comprehensive agreement to end the war and bring everyone back. No one must be left behind,” Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, told the weekly rally by relatives and supporters in Tel Aviv.
Israeli air strikes struck tents in the crowded Muwasi area on Gaza’s Mediterranean coast, killing seven people including a Palestinian doctor and his three children, said Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis.
Four others were killed in the town of Bani Suheila in southern Gaza.
Three people were killed in three strikes in Khan Younis.
Israel’s army did not immediately comment.
Separately, eight Palestinians were killed near a GHF aid distribution site in the southern city of Rafah, the hospital said.
One Palestinian was killed near another GHF point in Rafah.
It was not clear how far the Palestinians were from the sites.
GHF denied the killings happened near their sites.
The organisation has said no one has been shot at its sites, which are guarded by private contractors and can be accessed only by passing Israeli military positions hundreds of metres away.
The army had no immediate comment but has said it fires warning shots as a crowd-control measure and only aims at people when its troops are threatened.
Another Palestinian was killed waiting in crowds for aid trucks in eastern Khan Younis, officials at Nasser Hospital said.
The United Nations and other international organisations have been bringing in their own supplies of aid since the war began.
The incident did not appear to be connected to GHF operations.
Much of Gaza’s population of more than two million now relies on international aid after the war has largely devastated agriculture and other food sources and left many people near famine.
Crowds of Palestinians often wait for lorries and unload or loot their contents before they reach their destinations.
The lorries must pass through areas under Israeli military control.
Israel’s military did not immediately comment.
The GHF said the two American aid workers were injured on Saturday morning when assailants threw grenades at a distribution site in Khan Younis.
The foundation said the injuries were not life-threatening.
Israel’s military said it evacuated the workers for medical treatment.
The GHF, a US- and Israeli-backed initiative meant to bypass the UN, distributes aid from four sites that are surrounded by Israeli troops.
Three sites are in Gaza’s far south.
The UN and other humanitarian groups have rejected the GHF system, saying it allows Israel to use food as a weapon, violates humanitarian principles and is not effective.
Israel says Hamas has siphoned off aid delivered by the UN, a claim the UN denies.
Hamas has urged Palestinians not to co-operate with the GHF.
GHF, registered in Delaware, began distributing food in May to Palestinians, who say Israeli troops open fire almost every day toward crowds on roads heading to the distribution points.
Several hundred people have been killed and hundreds more wounded, said Gaza’s Health Ministry and witnesses.
The UN human rights office says it has recorded 613 Palestinians killed within a month in Gaza while trying to obtain aid, most of them while trying to reach GHF sites.
The war began when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage.
Israel responded with an offensive that has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, said Gaza’s Health Ministry, which is led by medical professionals employed by the Hamas government.
It does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, but the UN and other international organisations see its figures as the most reliable statistics on war casualties. - AP
