Key negotiator Egypt proposes a two-day ceasefire in Gaza

RAMAT HASARON, Israel (AP) — Egypt’s president announced Sunday that his country had proposed a two-day cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that kept four hostages in Gaza would be fired. There was no immediate response from Israel or Hamas as the latest talks were expected in Qatar, another key mediator.

president Abdel Fattah el-Sissi said the offer included the release of some Palestinian prisoners and the delivery of humanitarian aid to besieged Gaza. This is intended to “move the situation forward”, he said, adding that talks would continue to make the ceasefire permanent.

Negotiations on a longer phased ceasefire have repeatedly stalled. Hamas wants Israeli forces to leave Gaza as a precondition, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said they will stay until Hamas is destroyed. Since then there has been no ceasefire A week-long pause in the fighting in November in the first weeks of the war.

The head of Israel’s Mossad traveled to Doha on Sunday for talks with Qatar’s prime minister and the head of the CIA in a last-ditch effort to end hostilities and ease regional tensions that have erupted since Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Because of these tensions, Israel is now at war with both Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon and openly attacking Iran, their ally, for the first time this weekend. Iran’s supreme leader said Sunday that Israel’s strikes — in response to Iran’s ballistic missile attack this month — “should neither be exaggerated nor downplayed.” without calling for retribution.

At a government memorial ceremony marking the Jewish anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that “not every objective can be achieved through military operations alone,” adding that “painful compromises will be required” to return the hostages.

At the same event, protesters disrupted Netanyahu’s speech, chanting “Shame on you.” Many Israelis blame him for the security lapses that led to the attack and hold him responsible for not yet returning the hostages home.

In Gaza, at least 33 people, mostly women and children, were killed in the latest Israeli strikes in the north, Palestinian officials said, in an offensive on the hard-hit isolated area entered the third week. The UN Secretary General called the situation of the Palestinians there “intolerable”. Israel said it targeted the militants.

Netanyahu says strikes on Iran have achieved Israel’s goals

Netanyahu, in his first public comments on the strikes, said “we have caused serious damage to Iran’s defense capabilities and its ability to produce missiles aimed at us.”

Satellite images showed the damage two secret Iranian military basesone related to work on nuclear weapons, which Western intelligence agencies and nuclear inspectors say was halted in 2003. The other is related to Iran’s ballistic missile program. Iran announced the killing of a civilian, but did not provide details. 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.

The UN Security Council convened an emergency meeting on Monday at the request of Iran. Switzerland, which chairs the council, said Russia, China and Algeria, the council’s Arab representative, supported the request.

Iran’s most powerful proxy is Hezbollah, which has stepped up its fire on Israel in response to Israel’s ground invasion of southern Lebanon in recent weeks.

According to the Ministry of Health of Lebanon, as a result of two Israeli strikes in Sidon in southern Lebanon, eight people were killed and 25 were injured.

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

Dozens injured as a result of a truck ram in Israel

A truck drove into a bus stop in Ramat Hasharon, near Tel Aviv, killing one person and injuring more than 30. Israeli police said the attacker was an Arab Israeli citizen and had been “neutralized.” The ramming happened near a military base and near the headquarters of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency.

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

Tensions have risen sharply since the start of the war in Gaza, which Israel carried out regular military raids on the occupied West Bank which left hundreds dead.

‘Appalling death rate’ in northern Gaza

The emergency services of the Gaza Health Ministry said 11 women and two children were among 22 killed in strikes late Saturday in Beit Lahiya in the north. Israel’s army said it struck the militants.

A spokesman for the ministry, Hussein Mohesin, said that 11 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a school that had become a refuge in the Shati refugee camp in the north of the country, and many were injured. “Most of the victims are children and women, and most of them are in very serious condition,” he said. The Israeli military has not commented.

Israel has been conducting a massive air and ground offensive in northern Gaza since early October, claiming that Hamas militants have regrouped there. Hundreds of people were killed and tens of thousands of Palestinians fled the last wave of displacement.

Aid groups are warning of a catastrophic situation. Israel sharply limited the flow of humanitarian aid in recent weeks, and the three remaining hospitals in the north say they are full. The UN Secretary General noted the “terrible death rate.”

The war began when Hamas-led militants invaded southern Israel on October 7, 2023. They killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped about 250. About 100 hostages remain in Gazaabout 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. It does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but says that 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% of its population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.

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Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv, Israel, Magdi from Cairo and Kraus from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press reporters Wafaa Shurafa in Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip, John Gambrell in Dubai and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran contributed to this report.