• Mediators meet in Cairo in effort to bridge gaps on truce proposal
• Biden presses Netanyahu on urgency of sealing a deal for ceasefire

CAIRO: Israeli forces pressed deeper into areas of the central and southern Gaza Strip as they battled Hamas fighters, while Palestinian health officials said on Thursday that Israeli strikes had killed at least 27 people across the enclave.

The new escalation comes hours after US President Joe Biden pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the urgency of sealing a deal for a truce in Gaza and the release of prisoners, the White House said.

Separately, US and Israeli delegations started a new round of meetings in Cairo on Thursday to secure a ceasefire deal. Months of on-off talks on a ceasefire have circled the same issues, but Israel and Hamas have stuck firmly to their demands.

In the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, a strike on a house killed 11 people, including children and women, the bodies of some of whom had been burnt, according to the territory’s Civil Emergency Service.

Medics said another strike killed six people, including a local journalist, in a house in Al-Maghazi camp in the central Gaza Strip, while five others were killed in separate strikes in the south.

Later on Thursday, five Palestinians were killed and several wounded in an Israeli airstrike that hit people near a square in Khan Younis, health officials said.

The Israeli military said its forces had intensified their operations in Deir Al-Balah, in central Gaza, and Khan Younis, in the south, dismantling dozens of structures over the past 24 hours. It claimed forces killed 50 fighters in the area of Rafah, in the far south of the enclave, over the past day.

The armed wing of Hamas said fighters ambushed an Israeli force in Rafah, killing and wounding several of them.

Tanks and drones

In the central Gaza town of Deir Al-Balah, which houses around one million residents and displaced Palestinians, according to the municipal council, residents said tanks advanced further from the east and blocked some roads connecting the city with the nearby Khan Younis in the south.

Israeli tanks have also advanced to the west, in Al-Karara and Hamad areas of Khan Younis, pushing more families out of their shelters and tents, sometimes under heavy fire from tanks and drones, residents said.

Some families slept on the roads, others on the beach after they failed to find space or shelter.

A phone call between Biden and Netanyahu late on Wednesday followed a whirlwind trip to the region by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that ended on Tuesday without producing a breakthrough in the 10-month-old war.

Cairo meetings

US and Israeli delegations started a new round of meetings in Cairo on Thursday aimed at resolving differences over a truce proposal to end more than 10 months of war in Gaza, two Egyptian security sources said.

Egyptian and US officials had met to seek compromises over plans for providing security on the border between Egypt and Gaza following an Israeli military withdrawal demanded by Hamas, the sources said.

The proposals were due to be presented to Israeli officials later, with a Qatari delegation due to join on Friday, they added.

Egypt along with the United States and Qatar has been a mediator in months of stop-start negotiations to secure a ceasefire in Gaza, as well as the release of Israeli and Palestinian prisoners.

Israeli demands to keep troops deployed along the Netzarim Corridor, which cuts across Gaza, as well as in a buffer zone between Gaza and Egypt known as the Philadelphi Corridor, have emerged as the most significant obstacles to a deal.

Egypt as well as Hamas want Israel to withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor, where Israeli troops advanced in May. Israel alleges Hamas has used the area to bring arms into Gaza. Egypt says it has shut off smuggling routes.

The meetings in Cairo on Thursday and Friday follow a trip to the region by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that failed to produce a breakthrough in negotiations.

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2024