Gaza truce talks set to resume in Cairo as heavy fighting rages

Egypt was Sunday set to host the latest talks aiming for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas as Gaza officials reported more deadly bombardment in the nearly five-month-old war.

A senior Hamas official told AFP that a delegation from the Palestinian group would discuss with mediators a proposal for a six-week truce, after a US official said Israel had “more or less accepted” its terms.

Envoys from the United States, Qatar and Hamas have arrived in Cairo, state-linked media reported, as all sides have been scrambling to lock in a truce before Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month that begins on March 10 or 11.

The Hamas official said that if Israel were to meet its demands — which include a military withdrawal from Gaza and stepped-up humanitarian aid — this would “pave the way for an agreement within the next 24-48 hours”.

The health ministry in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip said at least 90 Palestinians had been killed in the past 24 hours, including 14 family members whose house in the southern Rafah refugee camp had been hit.

In a sign of the worsening humanitarian crisis in the narrow coastal territory, ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said at least 16 children had died of malnutrition in recent days as “famine spreads in the Strip’s north”.

Israel’s top ally the United States on Saturday began airdropping aid into war-ravaged Gaza, which has faced dwindling deliveries of relief supplies across its land borders.

The Hamas official said the group would demand “the entry of at least 400 to 500 trucks per day” carrying food, medicine and fuel as part of the truce deal.

The US official, speaking to reporters late Saturday, said “there’s a framework deal” for a ceasefire which “the Israelis have more or less accepted”.

Israel had yet to confirm that it has accepted the truce plan or whether it would attend the Cairo talks.

A ceasefire could start “today if Hamas agrees to release the defined category of vulnerable hostages… the sick, the wounded, elderly and women,” the US official said.

“Right now, the ball is in the camp of Hamas.”

Osama Hamdan, a Lebanon-based Hamas official, told Qatar’s Al-Araby TV that the group insisted on a complete, rather than “temporary”, ceasefire and on “ending the aggression against our people”.