AFP – Diplomatic efforts increased Sunday to reach a long sought-after truce and hostage-release deal in Gaza, as Israel carried out further airstrikes and shelling on the war-battered territory.
Global opposition to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has also been growing, with world leaders and aid groups warning that a looming Israeli invasion of the southernmost city of Rafah would lead to massive civilian causalities.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas appealed to the United States (US) Sunday to stop Israel from invading Rafah, which he said would be “the biggest disaster in the history of the Palestinian people”.
The US – Israel’s main ally and weapons supplier – was the only nation capable of preventing Israel from “committing this crime”, Abbas told a global economic summit in Saudi Arabia.
Hamas said on Saturday it was studying a new Israeli counterproposal for truce and hostage release, a day after media reports said an Egyptian delegation was in Israel in a bid to jump-start stalled negotiations.
Egypt, Qatar and the US have been trying to mediate a new truce ever since a one-week halt to the fighting in November saw 80 Israeli hostages exchanged for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
Abbas spoke at a World Economic Forum (WEF) summit that opened in Riyadh, which US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and high-ranking officials from other countries trying to broker a ceasefire are also attending.
While there is no Israeli participation, other key players will discuss the truce talks and humanitarian situation in Gaza, WEF president Borge Brende said.
There was “some new momentum now in the talks around the hostages, and also for… a possible way out of the impasse we are faced with in Gaza,” he said.
The Gaza health ministry Sunday reported at least 66 deaths in the past 24 hours.
In central Gaza, Mohammed al-Hattab said he found his one-year-old boy in the rubble after an Israeli airstrike hit the Nuseirat refugee camp over the weekend.
The boy is being treated for a fractured skull, while his two-year-old daughter’s face was “completely disfigured” in the strike, he told AFP.
Israel carried out airstrikes and shelling in Gaza overnight, hitting three houses in the southern city of Khan Yunis, an AFP correspondent said Sunday, also reporting strikes on Gaza City and Rafah.
Most of Gaza’s population has taken refuge in Rafah, according to the UN, many in makeshift shelters after fleeing violence elsewhere.
On the side of a tent in Rafah on Saturday, a Palestinian wrote a message to the thousands of protesters on US university campuses.
“Thank you, students in solidarity with Gaza, your message has reached,” it read.
