Mediators press Israel, Hamas to truce proposal

Fresh strikes were reported across the Gaza Strip overnight into Monday, as mediators urged Israel and Hamas to agree to a truce and hostage release deal outlined by US President Joe Biden.

Since Biden spoke at the White House on Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted Israel will pursue the war — now nearing its ninth month — until it has destroyed Hamas and freed the captives taken during the Palestinian militant group’s unprecedented 7 October attack.

Hamas has said it “views positively” what Biden described as an Israeli proposal.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to discuss the deal, the State Department said in a pair of statements Sunday night.

In the calls, Blinken “commended” Israel on the proposal and “emphasized that Hamas should take the deal without delay.”

Netanyahu, a hawkish political veteran leading a fragile right-wing coalition government, is under intense domestic pressure from two sides.

Protesters backing an immediate hostage release, who rallied again Saturday in Tel Aviv, want him to strike a truce deal, but his far-right allies are threatening to bring down the government if he does.

Meanwhile, fighting has continued to rock Gaza, with hospitals there reporting at least 19 killed in overnight strikes into Monday morning.

Gaza’s European hospital said 10 people were killed and several wounded in an Israeli air strike on a house east of the main southern city of Khan Yunis. And six people were reported killed in a strike on a family home further north in the central Bureij refugee camp, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital.

Air strikes and shelling were also reported in Gaza City, in the territory’s north, as well as in Rafah, along its southern border with Egypt.

Netanyahu said Saturday that “Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed: the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel.”

Mediators the United States, Qatar and Egypt later said they called “on both Hamas and Israel to finalize the agreement embodying the principles outlined by President Joe Biden.”

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told ABC News Sunday that “we have every expectation that if Hamas agrees to the proposal, as was transmitted to them — an Israeli proposal — that Israel would say yes.”

The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’ 7 October attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,189 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.