Israel expands offensive in Gaza amid ceasefire negotiations

Israel announced a new military campaign against Hamas in central Gaza on Wednesday, where Palestinian doctors said dozens of people had been killed in airstrikes, complicating expected talks between mediators to try to finalize a ceasefire agreement. .

At least 44 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli military strikes in the central areas of the Gaza Strip since Tuesday (4), health officials in the enclave said.

“The sounds of shelling didn’t stop all night,” said Aya, 30, a displaced woman in Deir Al-Balah.

The Israeli military said the jets were striking Hamas military targets in central Gaza, while ground forces were operating “in a focused manner, with intelligence guidance” in the Al-Bureij area – one of Gaza’s long-established refugee settlements. .

“Forces of the 98th Division began a precise campaign in the areas of East Bureij and East Deir al-Balah, by air and ground at the same time,” an Israeli military statement said.

Residents said Israeli forces sent tanks into Bureij and planes and tanks attacked the nearby settlements of Al-Maghazi and Al-Nuseirat, as well as the city of Deir Al-Balah, where the tanks did not invade.

“Every time they talk about new truce negotiations, the occupation uses a city or refugee camp as a pressure card. Why should civilians, people safe inside their homes or tents, pay the price? Why can’t the Arabs and the world stop the war?” Aya told Reuters in cellphone messages.

Ceasefire negotiations in Doha and Cairo

Aya, like many in the Gaza Strip, said people were hopeful about reports in Egyptian state media that officials from the United States, Qatar and Egypt would meet in Doha on Wednesday to try to move forward with a peace agreement. ceasefire that would also free some Israeli hostages. and Palestinian prisoners.

“We are waiting for a response from Hamas” through Qatari mediators, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Tuesday, referring to a proposed ceasefire that the president of the USA, Joe Biden, revealed on Friday.

Qatar said the proposal was now much closer to the positions of both sides.

Hamas said it views the content of the plan positively and criticized Washington for what it described as attempts to blame the Palestinian militant group for hindering it.

But a spokesman for Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, reiterated on Tuesday that it could not agree to any deal unless Israel made a “clear” commitment to a permanent truce and a complete withdrawal from Gaza. Israel says it cannot do this until Hamas is wiped out.

US officials say that because it is an Israeli plan, Israel is likely to accept it. Qatar said Israel needs to give a clear position on the plan that is representative of the entire government. Until now, parts of the cabinet have opposed any type of truce.

Also on Wednesday, a delegation from the Islamic Jihad group, an ally of Hamas, arrived in Cairo for ceasefire negotiations, the group said in a statement. In that same document, he stated that the delegation led by the head of Islamic Jihad, Ziad al-Nakhala, would discuss with Egyptian mediators ways to “end Zionist aggression in the Gaza Strip and discuss efforts to send aid.”

The new Israeli military campaign in central Gaza has forced some families to abandon their homes in Al-Maghazi and Al-Burej and head to Deir Al-Balah, which is already home to hundreds of thousands of Gazans displaced by violence elsewhere. .

The Israeli military also gave an update on Rafah, where it attacked last month in what the military calls a limited operation to root out the last intact Hamas fighting units after nearly eight months of war in the Gaza Strip.

“The forces found means of combat and eliminated armed saboteurs who operated nearby and posed a threat,” the military said.

The small town on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt was home to about a million Palestinians who fled Israeli attacks elsewhere in the enclave, but most fled again in the face of an advance led by Israeli tanks.

Rafah residents said Israeli tanks carried out attacks in the center and deeper into the west, before retreating again to the east and south.

The United Nations Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA) issued a new call for a ceasefire on Wednesday in X.

“The war in Gaza has destroyed millions of Palestinian lives and caused catastrophic damage to the natural environment on which they depend for water, clean air, food and livelihoods. Restoring environmental services will take decades – and cannot even begin before a ceasefire,” he said.

Israel vowed to destroy Hamas by launching an air and ground offensive in Gaza last year after militants stormed across Israel’s southern border on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli records. Around 120 hostages remain in Gaza.

The Israeli military campaign has killed more than 36,000 people in densely populated Gaza, according to health authorities, who say thousands more bodies are buried under the rubble.