- Hamas is considering a Gaza truce deal with a
“positive spirit” and plans to send a delegation to Egypt to finalize
ceasefire discussions. - The proposed truce includes a 40-day halt to fighting and
an exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners. - International mediators are urging Hamas to accept the
deal to alleviate Palestinian suffering.
Hamas says
it is considering in a “positive spirit” a Gaza truce deal. At the
same time, the UN warned rebuilding the devastated Palestinian territory would
require efforts not seen since World War II.
After
months of stop-start negotiations, Hamas has sounded an optimistic tone about
the latest hostages-for-ceasefire proposal, raising hopes an agreement may soon
be reached – even as medics in the besieged strip reported fresh strikes on
Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah on Friday.
Hamas chief
Ismail Haniyeh said the group will “soon” send a delegation to Egypt
to complete ongoing ceasefire discussions with a deal that “realises the
demands of our people”.
Haniyeh,
the leader of the militant group’s political wing, told Egyptian and Qatari
mediators in calls on Thursday that Hamas was studying the latest proposal from
Israel with a “positive spirit”.
The stakes
of the truce talks were thrown into sharp relief Thursday when a UN report
estimated it could take 80 years to reconstruct all the homes flattened over
the course of the nearly seven-month war.
“The
scale of the destruction is huge and unprecedented… this is a mission that
the global community has not dealt with since World War II,” Abdallah
al-Dardari, the UNDP’s Regional Director for Arab States told a briefing in
Jordan.
The UNDP
assessment forecasted the socioeconomic toll inflicted would cost generations
of Palestinians to come and called for an urgent ceasefire.
‘Suffering’
The only
truce mediators have been able to hammer out so far was a week-long deal in
November that saw the release of 105 hostages for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
Israel
estimates that 129 captives seized by the militants during their 7 October
attack remain in Gaza.
The
military says 35 of them are dead, including 49-year-old Dror Or.
The
government confirmed Or’s death early Friday. Two of his children were among
the hostages released during the November truce.
ROLLING COVERAGE | DEVELOPING: Israel announces Gaza-held hostage death as mediators await Hamas’ ceasefire response
Hamas and
Israel have been at loggerheads for months over the terms of any new deal.
The
militant group has demanded a permanent ceasefire to end the war and the
withdrawal of troops, which Israel has refused.
While
Israel faces regular protests demanding the government bring home remaining
captives, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to fight on.
With or
without a truce, he has said he will send ground troops into Rafah despite
global concerns over the fate of around 1.5 million civilians sheltering there.
The truce
offer under consideration includes a 40-day halt to fighting and the exchange
of Israeli hostages for potentially thousands of Palestinian prisoners,
according to details released by Britain.
During his
latest whirlwind visit to the Middle East, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
urged the Palestinian group to accept what he termed an “extraordinarily
generous” deal on the part of Israel.
“If
Hamas actually purports to care about the Palestinian people and wants to see
an immediate alleviation of their suffering, it will take the deal,”
Blinken told reporters Wednesday.
Until
Haniyeh’s comments, Gaza-rulers Hamas had indicated a generally negative
reception of the proposed truce.
The war
started with Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of
1 170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official
figures.
Israel’s
retaliatory campaign has killed at least 34 596 people in Gaza, mostly women
and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
UNDP
estimated that as of 12 April, at least five percent of Gaza’s population had
been killed or injured.
“The
suffering in Gaza will not end when the war does,” UNDP chief Achim
Steiner said.
He added,
“Unprecedented levels of human losses, capital destruction, and the steep
rise in poverty in such a short period of time will precipitate a serious
development crisis.”
‘Mouths left
hungry’
The
humanitarian crisis and rising death toll in Gaza have prompted demonstrations
around the world, including in universities in the United States, Canada and
France.
Israeli
President Isaac Herzog slammed the protests, charging that the US universities
had been “contaminated by hatred and anti-Semitism”.
Colombia
severed diplomatic ties with Israel on Wednesday, while Turkey on Thursday
announced it was suspending trade.
Gaza’s 2.4
million inhabitants are threatened by famine, but international aid has only
been able to trickle in.
Under US
pressure, Israel has allowed increased aid deliveries in recent days, including
through a reopened border crossing.
At south
Gaza’s largest hospital, the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, which was
heavily damaged by fighting in February, foreign aid and borrowed equipment has
helped to “almost completely” restore the emergency department, its
director Atef al-Hout said.
US charity
World Central Kitchen resumed delivering food to starving Gazans this week
after it had suspended operations following an Israeli strike in April that
killed seven of its staffers.
“We
realised after the kitchen closed that many mouths were left hungry,”
kitchen manager Zakria Yahya Abukuwaik said while preparing food in Rafah.