Hamas head due in Cairo for truce discussions

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was expected in Cairo on Thursday for talks on a proposed truce in Gaza, as Israel kept up its offensive in the besieged Palestinian territory.

Hamas was reviewing a proposal for a six-week truce in its war with Israel, a source told AFP, after mediators gathered in Paris, with international efforts towards a new pause in the devastating war gathering pace.

In Gaza, there was no let-up in fighting or aerial bombardment, with the current focus of combat in the main southern city Khan Yunis, where Israel says leading Hamas militants are hiding.

Overnight, witnesses said several Israeli air strikes hit the city, while aid and health workers have for days reported heavy fighting, particularly around two hospitals.

“There is a massacre taking place right now,” said Leo Cans, head of mission for international NGO Doctors Without Borders for the Palestinian Territories.

Due to constraints on the delivery of humanitarian aid, the population is “starving to death”, the World Health Organization’s emergencies director Michael Ryan said Wednesday.

“The civilians of Gaza are not parties to this conflict, and they should be protected, as should be their health facilities,” he added.

In its latest update, the UN reported heavy bombardment across the Gaza Strip, particularly in Khan Yunis, while it said 184,000 Palestinians from the city were registered to receive humanitarian assistance after fleeing their homes.

Three-stage plan

As Qatari and Egyptian-led mediation efforts intensified, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was due in Cairo on Thursday to discuss a truce proposal thrashed out in Paris last weekend with CIA chief William Burns.

A Hamas source told AFP the three-stage plan would start with an initial six-week halt to the fighting that would see more aid deliveries into the Gaza Strip.

Only “women, children and sick men over 60” held by Gaza militants would be freed during that stage in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israel, the source said, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the talks.

There would also be “negotiations around the withdrawal of Israeli forces”, with possible additional phases involving more hostage-prisoner exchanges, said the source, adding the territory’s rebuilding was also among issues addressed by the deal.

The war was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Militants also seized about 250 hostages. Israel says 132 of them remain in Gaza including at least 29 people believed to have been killed.

Following the deadliest attack in Israel’s history, its military launched a withering air, land and sea offensive that has killed at least 26,900 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

Tens of billions of dollars, and seven decades, would be required to rebuild Gaza, which “currently is uninhabitable” as half its structures are damaged or destroyed, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said.