Hamas reviewing Israeli ceasefire proposal as possible Rafah offensive looms

Hamas said on Saturday it was reviewing a new Israeli proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza, as Egypt intensified efforts to broker a deal to end the months-long war and stave off a possible Israeli ground offensive into the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

Senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya said the Palestinian militant group was evaluating Israel’s proposal, and “upon completion of its study, it will submit its response”.

He gave no details of Israel’s offer but said it was in response to a proposal from Hamas two weeks ago.

Negotiations earlier this month centred on a six-week ceasefire proposal and the release of 40 civilian and sick hostages in exchange for freeing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Hamas’s statement came hours after a high-level Egyptian delegation wrapped up a visit to Israel where it discussed a “new vision” for a prolonged ceasefire in Gaza, according to an Egyptian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

It was not immediately clear whether Israel’s latest response to Hamas on a ceasefire was directly related to Friday’s visit to Tel Aviv by Egyptian mediators.

The discussions between Egyptian and Israeli officials focused on the first stage of a multi-phase plan that would include a limited exchange of hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners, and the return of a significant number of displaced Palestinians to their homes in northern Gaza “with minimum restrictions”, the Egyptian official said.

The mediators are working on a compromise that will answer most of both parties’ main demands, which could pave the way to continued negotiations with the goal of a larger deal to end the war, the official said.

As the war drags on and casualties mount, there has been growing international pressure for Hamas and Israel to reach an agreement on a ceasefire and avert a possible Israeli attack on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have sought refuge after fleeing fighting elsewhere in the territory.

Israel has been insisting for months it plans a ground offensive into Rafah, on the border with Egypt, where it says many remaining Hamas militants are holed up, despite calls for restraint from the international community including Israel’s staunchest ally, the United States.

Egypt has cautioned an offensive into Rafah could have “catastrophic consequences” on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, as well as on regional peace and security.

The Israeli military has massed dozens of tanks and armoured vehicles in southern Israel close to Rafah and hit targets in the city in near-daily airstrikes.

Early on Saturday, an Israeli airstrike hit a house in Rafah’s Tel Sultan neighbourhood, killing six people, including four children, according to officials at a local hospital.

The strike killed a man, his wife and their three sons, aged 12, 10 and eight, according to records of the Abu Yousef al-Najjar hospital’s morgue. A neighbour’s four-month-old girl was also killed, the records showed.

Five people were also killed in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza overnight when an Israeli strike hit a house, according to officials at the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

Elsewhere, Israeli forces shot and killed two Palestinian men in an exchange of fire at a checkpoint in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the military said.

Violence in the West Bank has flared since the war started. Since then, 491 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the territory according to the Ramallah-based health ministry.

The Israeli army said the two men were killed after they opened fire from a vehicle at Israeli troops stationed at Salem checkpoint near the Palestinian city of Jenin.

The US has been critical of Israeli policies in the West Bank and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is expected in Israel on Tuesday, has recently determined an army unit committed human rights abuses there before the Gaza war.

But Mr Blinken said in an undated letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, obtained by The Associated Press on Friday, that he is postponing a decision on blocking aid to the unit to give Israel more time to right the wrongdoing.

Mr Blinken stressed in the letter that overall US military support for Israel’s defence against Hamas and other threats would not be affected by the State Department’s eventual decision on the one unit.

The US has also been building a pier to deliver aid to Gaza through a new port, which an official said last week was on track to start operating by early May.

The Biden administration has stressed there will be no American boots on the ground for the mission.

However, the BBC reported on Saturday that the British government was considering deploying troops to drive the trucks to carry the aid to the shore, citing unidentified government sources. UK government officials declined to comment on the report.

Hamas said on Friday it is open to any “ideas or suggestions” that take into consideration the needs of the Palestinian people such as an end to Israel’s attacks on Gaza, the return of displaced people to their homes and an Israeli withdrawal.

The Palestinian group has said it will not back down from its demands for a permanent ceasefire and full withdrawal of Israeli troops, both of which Israel has rejected.

Israel says it will continue military operations until Hamas is defeated and that it will retain a security presence in Gaza afterwards.

Hamas sparked the war with its attack into southern Israel on October 7, in which militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took some 250 people as hostages. Israel says the militants are still holding around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.

Since then, 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s air and ground offensive, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, around two-thirds of them children and women.

Israel has reported at least 260 of its soldiers killed since the start of ground operations in Gaza.