Egypt’s president said he had proposed a two-day ceasefire in Gaza

RAMAT HASHARON, Israel. On Sunday, Egypt’s president announced that his country had proposed a two-day ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in which four hostages held in Gaza would be freed.

President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, speaking in Cairo, said the offer also included the release of some Palestinian prisoners and the delivery of humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip.

Egypt was a key mediator, along with Qatar and the United States. This is the first time that an Egyptian president has publicly proposed such a plan. There was no immediate response from Israel or Hamas.

El-Sissi said the proposal was meant to “move the situation forward”, adding that once the two-day ceasefire was in effect, talks would continue to make it permanent.

There has been no ceasefire for 11 months, after a week-long pause in November in which 105 hostages were released in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.

Meanwhile, the head of Israel’s Mossad traveled to Doha on Sunday for talks with Qatar’s prime minister and the head of the CIA.

During a government Sunday marking the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that “not every objective can be achieved through military operations.” He added that “painful compromises will be required” to return the hostages.

Egypt’s offer came a day after Israel struck Iran in response to Iran’s ballistic missile attack earlier this month. Iran’s supreme leader said the attack “can neither be exaggerated nor downplayed” but stopped short of calling for retaliation. It was Israel’s first open attack on its sworn enemy.

The exchange of fire raised fears of an all-out regional war pitting Israel and the United States against Iran and its militant allies, including Hamas and the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, where Israel launched a ground invasion earlier this month after nearly a year of low-level conflict sparked by war in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Israeli strikes in northern Gaza killed at least 33 people, mostly women and children, Palestinian officials said Sunday, as Israel’s offensive on the hard-hit and isolated territory entered its third week and the UN secretary-general called the plight of Palestinians there “unbearable.” . Israel said it targeted the militants.

According to the Ministry of Health of Lebanon, as a result of two Israeli strikes in the city of Sidon in the south of Lebanon, eight people were killed and 25 were injured. According to footage taken by an Associated Press reporter, one hit hit a residential building.

The Israeli military said four soldiers, including a military rabbi, were killed in fighting in southern Lebanon, without giving details. It is noted that five more servicemen were seriously injured. An explosive drone and projectile fired from Lebanon injured five people in Israel, authorities said.

Netanyahu says strikes on Iran have achieved Israel’s goals

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his first public comment on the strikes, said “we have severely damaged Iran’s defense capabilities and its ability to produce missiles aimed at us.”

Satellite images showed damage to two secret Iranian military bases, one related to nuclear weapons work that Western intelligence agencies and nuclear inspectors say was halted in 2003, and the other related to Iran’s ballistic missile program. On Sunday, Iran reported the death of a civilian, but no details were available. Earlier it was reported that four people from the military air defense were killed.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s 85-year-old supreme leader, said that “the authorities must determine how to transfer the power and will of the Iranian people to the Israeli regime.” Khamenei will make any final decision on how Iran responds.

Later on Sunday, protesters disrupted Netanyahu’s speech at a nationwide ceremony honoring the victims of the Hamas attack on southern Israel last year that sparked the Gaza war. People shouted “Shame on you” and forced Netanyahu to stop his speech. Many Israelis blame Netanyahu for the failures that led to the attack and hold him responsible for not yet bringing home the rest of the hostages.

Dozens injured as a result of a truck ram in Israel

In another incident, a truck drove into a bus stop near Tel Aviv, killing one person and injuring more than 30. Israeli police said the attacker was an Arab citizen of Israel. The ramming happened near a military base and near the headquarters of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency.

A truck crashed into a bus in Ramat Hasharon as Israelis were returning to work after the holidays, leaving people trapped under the cars.

Israel’s rescue service, Magen David Adom, reported that six of the injured were in critical condition. In the medical center of Ichilov, it was reported that one person died.

Asi Aharoni, a police spokesman, told reporters that the attacker had been “neutralized,” without saying whether the attacker had died.

Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group praised the attack but did not claim responsibility.

There have been numerous stabbings, shootings and car attacks by Palestinians over the years. Tensions have risen sharply since the start of the war in Gaza. Israel conducts regular military raids on the occupied West Bank, which have killed hundreds of people. Most of them appeared to be militants killed in firefights with Israeli forces, but Palestinians participating in violent protests and civilian bystanders were also killed.

“Terrible circumstances” in northern Gaza

The emergency services of the Gaza Health Ministry said 11 women and two children were among the 22 killed Saturday night in strikes on several houses and buildings in the northern Gaza city of Beit Lahiya. It is reported that 15 more were injured. The Israeli military announced that it struck the militants.

The representative of the Ministry of Health, Hussein Mohesin, said that 11 people were killed during an Israeli attack on a school that became a shelter in the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza. The Israeli army had no comment. Israel has struck a number of such caches, often killing women and children, saying it was targeting militants hiding among civilians.

Israel has been waging a massive air and ground offensive in northern Gaza since early October, saying Hamas militants had regrouped there. Hundreds of people have been killed and tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled to Gaza City in the latest wave of displacement.

Aid groups have warned of a catastrophic situation in northern Gaza, which has suffered the most destruction since the war. In recent weeks, Israel has severely limited the flow of basic humanitarian aid, and three hospitals in the north of the country, one of which was ransacked over the weekend, say they have been overwhelmed by waves of wounded.

The UN Secretary-General noted the “appalling death rate” in a statement from his spokesman. The International Committee of the Red Cross on Saturday described the civilian population in “appalling circumstances”.

The war began when Hamas-led militants punched holes in Israel’s border wall and invaded southern Israel in a surprise attack on October 7, 2023. They killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped about 250. About 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead.

According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, more than 42 thousand Palestinians died in response to Israel. The ministry did not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but said more than half of the dead were women and children. Israel claims to have killed more than 17,000 militants without providing evidence.

The offensive has devastated much of Gaza and displaced about 90 percent of its population of 2.3 million, often multiple times. Hundreds of thousands of people are huddled in squalid tent cities, and aid groups say the famine is unstoppable.

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