Antony Blinken in Israel for talks on truce deal

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Israel on Wednesday, where he was expected to press for what he called an “essential” truce agreement as the war with Hamas entered its fifth month.

The diplomat was due to meet Israel’s leaders as part of a Middle East tour after earlier stops in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Qatar.

Qatar, which mediated a temporary ceasefire earlier in the conflict, said Hamas had given a response to a new proposed deal to pause the fighting.

“The reply includes some comments, but in general it is positive,” Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said after meeting Blinken in Doha.

Blinken said Hamas’s reply had been “shared” with Israel and he would discuss it there on Wednesday.

He also said there was still “a lot of work to be done” but that he believed “that an agreement is possible and indeed essential”.

Israel’s spy agency Mossad also received the Hamas response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said, and “its details are being thoroughly evaluated”.

Netanyahu, who has yet to comment directly on the response, said on Tuesday: “We are on the way to the total victory and we will not stop.”

Pressure for a ceasefire has mounted as Israeli forces push towards the town of Rafah on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, where more than half the besieged territory’s population has taken shelter.

“To be clear, intensified hostilities in Rafah in this situation could lead to large-scale loss of civilian lives, and we must do everything possible within our power to avoid that,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN aid coordination office OCHA.

The war started with Hamas’s unprecedented attacks on Israel on October 7, which killed about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Militants also seized around 250 hostages, with Israel saying 132 remain in Gaza.

Vowing to eliminate Hamas, Israel has launched air strikes and a land offensive that have killed at least 27,585 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

The campaign has devastated swathes of Gaza, destroyed hospitals and displaced more than half of its population of 2.4 million, while food, water, fuel and medicine are in dire shortage.

“The humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is beyond catastrophic,” said Tommaso Della Longa, spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Israeli troops, with air and naval support, have been engaged in heavy combat centred on Gaza’s main southern city of Khan Yunis, the hometown of Hamas’s Gaza chief, Yahya Sinwar, accused by Israel of masterminding the October 7 attack.

Around 8,000 displaced people had been evacuated from the besieged Al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis, where they had sought refuge, after weeks of heavy shelling and fighting nearby, according to the Red Cross.

Gaza’s health ministry said at least 100 people were killed overnight Tuesday to Wednesday.

Israel has warned it could also push on into Rafah, the last place of refuge for many Palestinians fleeing the fighting.