Gaza truce talks resume in Egypt, without Israel for now

PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: Talks resumed in Egypt Saturday (May 4) aimed at halting months of war in Gaza between Hamas militants and Israel that have triggered protests around the world.

Mediators from Qatar, Egypt and the United States sat down with a Hamas delegation to hear the militant group's response to a proposal that would halt fighting for 40 days and exchange hostages for Palestinian prisoners, according to details released by Britain.

After the talks began, a top Israeli official accused Hamas of "thwarting the possibility of reaching an agreement" by refusing to give up its demand for an end to the war.

Shortly before 9.00pm local time a senior Hamas source close to the negotiations told AFP the talks had ended for the day and would resume on Sunday.

The war broke out after Hamas's unprecedented Oct 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 34,654 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

Gaza's civil defence agency and hospitals reported more deaths from Israeli strikes in Rafah as well as areas farther north.

The United Nations says more than 70 per cent of Gaza's residential buildings have been completely or partly destroyed, and rebuilding will require an effort unseen since the aftermath of World War II.

Egypt's Al-Qahera News, which is linked to the intelligence services, quoted an unidentified high-ranking source as saying "there is significant progress in the negotiations" and that the mediators have "reached an agreed-upon formula on most points of contention".

A senior Hamas official told AFP before the talks resumed that the movement "looks with an open mind to changes in the occupation's (Israel's) position and the American position, but there are issues that must be addressed".

Senior Hamas official Hossam Badran accused Netanyahu Friday of trying to undermine the latest truce proposal with his threats to keep fighting with or without a deal.

Badran said Netanyahu's insistence on attacking Rafah was calculated to "thwart any possibility of concluding an agreement".

The top Israeli official, who spoke anonymously, said: "What we are looking at is an agreement over a framework for a possible hostage deal."

He said that the sign of progress "would be if we send a delegation led by Mossad (intelligence service) chief (David Barnea) to Cairo".

US President Joe Biden has come under mounting domestic pressure to leverage more concessions from Netanyahu's government over its conduct of the war.

A letter signed by 88 congressmen from Biden's Democratic Party expressed serious concern over Israel's "deliberate withholding" of aid for Palestinian civilians and urged Biden to consider halting arms sales unless Israel's conduct changes.

At US urging, Israel has facilitated more aid deliveries into Gaza in recent days but UN agencies say it has not averted advancing famine.

World Food Programme chief Cindy McCain said in an interview published Friday that there was already "full-blown famine in the north (of Gaza) and it's moving its way south".

In a rare break from the daily struggle to survive, dozens of Palestinians gathered under decorative lights in Khan Younis for a mass wedding on Friday. The grooms, one of them on crutches, wore matching dark suits over white shirts.

The war remained close, though. The Israeli military said it struck a munitions site in the Khan Younis area on Friday after a projectile was fired towards Israel.