PHOTO: AFP

AGENCIES

Hamas is unlikely to reject a Gaza ceasefire proposal it received from mediators this week, but will not sign it without assurances that Israel has committed to ending the offensive, a Palestinian official close to the talks said yesterday.

Qatari and Egyptian mediators presented Hamas this week with the first concrete proposal for an extended halt to fighting in Gaza, agreed with Israel and the United States at talks in Paris last week. Hamas has said it is studying the text and preparing a response.

The Palestinian official said the Paris text envisions a first phase lasting 40 days, during which fighting would cease while Hamas freed remaining civilians from among more than 100 hostages it is still holding. Further phases would see the release of Israeli soldiers and the handover of bodies of dead hostages.

“I expect that Hamas will not reject the paper, but it might not give a decisive agreement either,” said the Palestinian official speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Instead, I expect them to send a positive response, and reaffirm their demands: for the agreement to be signed, it must ensure Israel will commit to ending the offensive in Gaza and pull out from the enclave completely.”

Such a long pause would be a first since October 7, when Israeli offensive in the Palestinian enclave began. Health officials in Gaza said yesterday the confirmed death toll had risen above 27,000, with thousands more dead still lying under the rubble. In the past 24 hours, 118 Palestinians were killed and 190 injured, they added.

In a sign of the seriousness of the proposal, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has said he will travel to Cairo to discuss it, although no firm date has been given for his trip, reports Reuters.

The diplomatic progress has been accompanied by some of the most intense fighting of the offensive. Israel launched a huge ground assault last week to capture the main southern city Khan Younis, sheltering hundreds of thousands of civilians who fled previous fighting elsewhere. Combat has also surged in the northern parts of the enclave, which Israel claimed to have subdued weeks ago.

Residents said Israeli forces pounded areas around hospitals in Khan Younis overnight, and stepped up attacks close to Rafah.

More than 30,000 people huddled in schools near Khan Younis’s main Nasser hospital lack water, food, baby formula and medicines chronic conditions, said Ashraf Al-Qidra, spokesman for Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

The fate of aid operations has been complicated by Israel’s accusation that some employees of UNRWA, the main UN agency for Palestinian refugees, were involved in the October 7 attacks.