Hamas has said it is studying the latest Israeli counterproposal regarding a potential ceasefire in Gaza, a day after media reports said a delegation from Egypt had arrived in Israel in an attempt to jumpstart stalled negotiations.
The signs of renewed truce talks come as the UN warned that “famine thresholds in Gaza will be breached within the next six weeks” unless massive food assistance arrives.
Aid groups say Gaza’s already catastrophic humanitarian conditions would be worsened by an invasion that Israel vows to carry out against Hamas battalions that remain in Rafah.
Rafah, on the border with Egypt, is crowded with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by nearly seven months of war between Israel and Hamas. The area is regularly bombed. Hospital officials said strikes in Rafah and elsewhere killed more than 12 people overnight.
Among the dead were an entire family, their relative Mohammed Yussef said. “Nobody left: the father, the mother, a girl and two boys” were killed when their house was targeted, he said.
Elsewhere in Rafah, people searched the rubble of homes that Abed al-Aziz Barhum said were “bombarded without prior warning”. He appealed to “all Arab people to support us against occupation and help us reach a ceasefire”.
Khalil al-Hayya, the deputy head of Hamas’s political arm in Gaza, said it had “received the official Zionist occupation response to the movement’s position, which was delivered to the Egyptian and Qatari mediators on 13 April”.
In a statement, Hayya said Hamas “will study this proposal” before responding. Hamas has previously insisted on a permanent ceasefire, which Israel rejects.
Egypt, Qatar and the US have been unsuccessfully trying to seal a new truce deal in Gaza ever since a one-week halt to the fighting in November, when 80 Israeli hostages were exchanged for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
There has been “noticeable progress in bringing the views of the Egyptian and Israeli delegations closer”, said al-Qahera News, which is linked to Egyptian intelligence services.
In early April Hamas had said it was studying a proposal, after talks in Cairo, and al-Qahera reported progress. Days later Israel and Hamas accused each other of undermining negotiations.
As talks drag on, dozens of people in Gaza die every day, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
The war began with Hamas’s unprecedented attack on 7 October, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,170 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,388 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry. At least 32 additional deaths are among the latest toll released on Saturday, it said.
An international summit will take place on Sunday in Saudi Arabia and will have a strong focus on the war, including the humanitarian situation, organisers said. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, will be among leaders attending the World Economic Forum special meeting, they said.
Israel’s military said on Saturday that its aircraft had hit more than 25 militant targets over the previous day.
Israel estimates that 129 hostages seized by militants on 7 October are still being held in Gaza, including 34 who are dead, says the military.
Israeli demonstrators have intensified protests for their government to reach a deal that would free the captives, accusing the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, of prolonging the war.
In its report on Friday, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said “the only way to halt famine” is by “massive and consistent food assistance that can be delivered freely and safely”.
OCHA says rising temperatures are exacerbating Gaza’s sanitation crisis, and an infant girl has reportedly died in Rafah from extreme heat.
The defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said this month that Israel planned to “flood Gaza” with aid, but the OCHA report cited continued “access constraints”.
A Royal Navy support ship has sailed from Cyprus to house hundreds of US army personnel building a jetty for aid sent by sea, a British defence source said on Saturday.
The Gaza war has led to increased violence between Israel and Iran’s proxies and allies, in particular the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah along the border with Lebanon.
Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon killed three people on Saturday, including two members of Hezbollah, the movement and official media said.
The violence has fuelled fears of all-out conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, which last went to war in 2006.