Truce negotiations between Israel and Hamas are set to recommence in Cairo on Sunday, marking the latest effort to broker a cessation after nearly six months of conflict in the Gaza Strip, as reported by Egypt’s Al Qahera News TV, citing a security source.
According to an Israeli official speaking to Reuters, Israel will dispatch a delegation to Cairo on Sunday. Meanwhile, a Hamas official informed Reuters that the group would await updates from Cairo mediators regarding the outcomes of their discussions with Israel before proceeding.
Mediated by Qatar and Egypt, the parties involved have intensified talks focused on a six-week halt to Israel’s offensive in exchange for the potential release of 40 of the 130 hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.
Hamas aims to leverage any agreement to cease hostilities and secure the withdrawal of Israeli forces. However, Israel has dismissed this possibility, affirming its intention to resume efforts to dismantle Hamas’s governance and military capacities eventually.
Hamas also wants hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled Gaza City and surrounding areas southward during the first stage of the war to be allowed back north. One Israeli official said his country was open to discussing allowing back only “some” of the displaced.
More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, according to health authorities in the territory.
The war erupted after Hamas broke through the border and rampaged through communities in southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel kept up its aerial and ground bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Friday, killing 82 Palestinians in the past 24 hours, the territory’s health ministry said as fighting raged around Gaza City’s main Al Shifa hospital.
The ministry added that Israeli forces in control of the hospital had blockaded 107 patients in the human resources department without water, electricity, or medication for several days, refusing all calls to evacuate them.
Armed wings of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said their fighters continued to battle Israeli forces around the medical facility, the Gaza Strip’s biggest hospital before the war, which had been one of the few healthcare facilities even partially operational in north Gaza before the latest fighting.
The Israeli military said forces operating in Al Shifa killed three armed Hamas commanders inside two buildings of the medical facility. Forces located sniper rifles, AK-47s, magazines, and grenades during the activity, the military said.
Israel said it killed and detained hundreds of Hamas and Islamic Jihad gunmen at Al Shifa during its raid there. Hamas and medical staffers deny any armed presence inside medical facilities, accusing Israel of killing and arresting civilians.
Source: Dunya News
