Israel kills at least 19 Palestinians as mediators stress truce proposal

Rafah, Palestinian Territories – AFP

Fresh strikes by Israel across the Gaza Strip overnight into Monday killed at least 19 Palestinians, as mediators urged Israel and Hamas to agree to a truce and prisoner swap deal outlined by US President Joe Biden.

Since Biden spoke at the White House on Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted Israel will continue its war on Gaza — now nearing its ninth month.

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 Defence 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 “emphasised 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, hospitals in Gaza reported at least 19 killed in overnight Israeli attacks 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.

– All UNRWA shelters in Rafah ’empty’ – 

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said Sunday that all 36 of its shelters in Rafah “are now empty”, after at least a million people fled the city.

“The humanitarian space continues to shrink”, UNRWA said, adding that about 1.7 million people were now sheltering in southern Gaza’s main city of Khan Yunis and in central areas.

Witnesses said Israeli Apache helicopters struck central Rafah on Sunday, also reporting clashes there and air raids and shelling in other parts of the city.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said it was “very difficult” to access Rafah because of the Israeli bombardment.

Meanwhile, in Syria, a strike attributed to Israel killed at least 12 people early Monday morning near Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

While it rarely comments on individual strikes in Syria, Israel has repeatedly said it will not allow its arch-enemy Iran — which also backs Hamas — to expand its presence there.

– ‘No milk’ for children –

Israel’s seizure last month of the Rafah crossing has further slowed sporadic aid deliveries for Gaza’s 2.4 million people and effectively closed its main exit point on the Egyptian border.

Egyptian state-linked Al-Qahera News said a Sunday meeting in Cairo with Israeli and US officials to discuss reopening the crossing had ended, without saying whether an agreement was reached.

Quoting a senior official, Al-Qahera said Egypt reiterated its demand that “Israel withdraw from the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing so it can resume operations”.

Cairo refuses to coordinate with Israel humanitarian deliveries through Rafah, but has agreed to send some aid via Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing.

Aid agencies and the UN have warned for months of the looming risk of famine in the besieged territory.

At a hospital in Deir al-Balah, 33-year-old Amira al-Taweel told AFP that her son, suffering from malnutrition, “needs treatment and milk, but there’s none available in Gaza”.

“I feed him wheat (flour) which makes him bloated,” she said, as her son, Youssef, lay on a narrow bed, his frail body receiving intravenous medication.

The Gaza media office said that at least 32 people, many of them children, have died of malnutrition since Israel began the war.

Aid agencies say a rise in malnutrition among children is largely a result of humanitarian aid that enters Gaza not reaching its intended destination.

– Political pressure –

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 finalise 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”.

Israel ‘s bombardments and ground offensive have killed at least 36,439 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry said on Sunday.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, leaders of the two extreme-right parties in parliament, warned they would leave the government if it endorsed the truce proposal — potentially costing Netanyahu’s coalition its majority.

But opposition leader Yair Lapid, a centrist former premier, said the government “cannot ignore Biden’s important speech” and vowed to back Netanyahu if his far-right coalition partners quit.

“I remind Netanyahu that he has our safety net for a hostage deal,” Lapid said on X.

Defence Minister Gallant, who has criticised Netanyahu over the lack of a post-war plan for Gaza, said Sunday that Israel was “assessing a governing alternative” to Hamas.