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The United States, joined by Arab mediators, pushed for a deal between Israel and Hamas on Wednesday to end the 14-month-old war in the Gaza Strip, where doctors said Israeli strikes killed at least 20 Palestinians overnight.
A Palestinian official close to the talks said Wednesday that mediators had closed loopholes in most of the deal’s clauses. He said Israel had imposed conditions rejected by Hamas, but declined to elaborate.
On Tuesday, sources close to the talks in Cairo said a ceasefire deal and the release of hostages held in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel could be signed in the coming days.
Doctors said an Israeli airstrike killed at least 10 people in a house in the northern city of Beit Lahiya, while six were killed in separate airstrikes in Gaza City, the Nuseirat camp in the central areas and Rafah near the border with Egypt.
In Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, medics said four people were killed in an airstrike on a house. An Israeli army spokesman had no comment.
Israeli forces have been operating in the towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, as well as the nearby Jabalia camp since October, in a campaign the military said was aimed at preventing Hamas militants from regrouping.
Palestinians accuse Israel of carrying out acts of “ethnic cleansing” to empty the northern edge of the enclave to create a buffer zone. Israel denies this.
Hamas does not publish its casualties, and the Palestinian Ministry of Health does not differentiate between combatants and non-combatants in the daily death toll.
On Wednesday, the Israeli military said it had hit a number of Hamas militants who were planning a direct attack on Israeli forces operating in Jabalia.
Later on Wednesday, Muhammad Saleh, director of Al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia, said Israeli shelling nearby damaged the facility, injuring seven medics and one patient at the hospital.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
In the Bureij camp in central Gaza, Palestinian families began leaving some districts after the army announced new evacuation orders on X and in text and audio messages to the cellphones of some residents there, citing new rocket fire by Palestinian militants from the area.
In a new report, Amnesty International has accused the state of Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza war, which Israel has vehemently denied, saying it respected international law.
The ceasefire is gaining momentum
The US administration, joined by mediators from Egypt and Qatar, did intensive efforts in recent days to advance talks before US President Joe Biden leaves office next month.
In Jerusalem, Israeli President Isaac Herzog met with Adam Boehler, US President-elect Donald Trump’s envoy for hostage issues. Trump threatened that “all hell will break loose” if Hamas does not release its hostages by January 20, the day Trump returns to the White House.
CIA Director William Burns was scheduled to arrive in Doha, Qatar, on Wednesday for talks with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on bridging the remaining gaps between Israel and Hamas, other familiar sources said. The CIA declined to comment.
Israeli negotiators were in Doha on Monday seeking to bridge differences between Israel and Hamas over the deal Biden floated in May.
After more than 14 months of war between Israel and Hamas, Gaza is sliding into lawlessness, and aid groups say the disintegration threatens the survival of up to two million people.
There have been repeated rounds of negotiations over the past year, all of which have failed, with Israel insisting on maintaining a military presence in Gaza and Hamas refusing to release the hostages until the troops withdraw.
The Gaza war, sparked by a Hamas attack on communities in southern Israel that killed around 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostage, sent shockwaves through the Middle East and left Israel internationally isolated.
Israel’s campaign has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, displaced most of its 2.3 million residents and reduced much of the coastal enclave to rubble.
