Attacks blamed on Israel on Saturday killed some 25 people in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, as the United States, determined to avoid an escalation, continued its efforts to achieve a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which denied that an agreement is “close.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was scheduled to fly to Israel on Saturday to try to “conclude an agreement” based on a new ceasefire proposal, according to the State Department, presented in recent negotiations in Qatar.
However, hours before his arrival, a senior Hamas official – who did not participate in the talks – called “illusion” President Joe Biden’s claim that such a deal is “close.”
On the ground, the Israeli army continues its offensive in the Gaza Strip, triggered by an unprecedented and savage Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7.
The Civil Defense of the Palestinian territory, besieged and devastated by more than ten months of war, announced that 15 members of the same family, including nine minors and three women, were killed in an Israeli bombardment during the early hours of the morning in Al Zawaida, in the center of the Strip.
The deceased children were between two and 17 years old, according to Civil Defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal.
“Around 1am, three missiles hit the house directly,” Ahmed Abu Al Ghoul, a witness, told AFP as rescuers pulled bodies from the rubble of the house. “There were mainly children and women inside,” he added.
The Israeli army has not yet commented on the reports. In a statement, it said it had eliminated several “terrorists” in Rafah and Khan Yunis, in the south of the enclave.
Bombing in Lebanon
In Lebanon, an Israeli bombing killed ten Syrian citizens including a woman and her two children, in the Nabatieh region in the south of the country, the Ministry of Health announced.
The Israeli army said it had struck “a weapons depot belonging to Hezbollah” in the evening, which had opened a front against Israel in support of its ally Hamas since October 8.
The Lebanese Islamist movement later announced that fired rocket salvos toward northern Israelin response to the attack.
The bombing comes after two days of “constructive” negotiations in Doha between Israel and the mediating countries – the United States, Qatar and Egypt – to reach a truce in the Gaza Strip.
Complex negotiations
Talks will continue next week in Cairowhere Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi warned of a “vicious and dangerous circle of instability.”
Biden said Friday that a deal had “never been so close” to being reached, after presenting a new proposal for its “implementation” during negotiations.
However, a senior Hamas official on Saturday called Biden’s optimism “illusion.”
Sami Abu Zohri, a member of the movement’s political bureau, said the negotiations were “the imposition of American dictates” and criticized a “huge step backwards.”
The revised version builds on a first plan announced by Biden at the end of May, which provides for a first phase of six weeks of truce, an Israeli withdrawal from densely populated areas of Gaza and an exchange of hostages held by Hamas since October 7 for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
But the Palestinian extremist group, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, accuses Israel of having added “new conditions” to the text, including “maintaining Israeli troops” along Gaza’s border with Egypt and “a right of veto” over Palestinian prisoners eligible to be exchanged for Hamas hostages.
Will Iran attack?
Diplomatic efforts are also aimed at reducing tensions in the rest of the Middle East.
Iran and its allies, including Hezbollah, have vowed to avenge the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in an attack blamed on Israel on July 31 in Tehran, a day after the military chief of the Lebanese Islamist movement was killed in an Israeli bombing near Beirut.
Iran will suffer “catastrophic” consequences if an attack is launched against Israel, a senior US official said on Friday, requesting anonymity.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists he will continue the war until he destroys Hamas, which Israel, the United States and the European Union consider a terrorist organization.
The conflict erupted on October 7, when Islamist militants killed 1,198 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 251 in southern Israel, according to an AFP tally based on official data.
Of the 251 people kidnapped, 111 remain in Gaza, although 39 have been declared dead. by the Israeli army.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has left at least 40,074 dead, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, which did not specify how many were civilians and combatants.
The war has led to a disastrous humanitarian situation in the country, with most of its 2.4 million inhabitants displaced.
The Palestinian Authority’s health ministry on Friday reported the first confirmed case of polio in Gaza in 25 years, shortly after the UN called for “humanitarian pauses” in vaccinating more than 640,000 children.