Egypt proposes two-day ceasefire that could see hostages released

Egypt's president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on Sunday that his nation has proposed a two-day ceasefire in Gaza to exchange four Israeli hostages with some Palestinian prisoners. 

Speaking at a press conference in Cairo alongside Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, the Egyptian leader's comments come as diplomats from Israel, the US, Egypt and Qatar are slated to meet in Doha to restart currently-dormant truce talks. 

It comes as Israeli military strikes killed at least 45 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, most of them in the north of the enclave, Palestinian health officials said, as efforts to secure a ceasefire in the more than year-long war resumed in Qatar.

The directors of the CIA and Israel's Mossad intelligence agency will meet with Qatar's prime minister on Sunday in Doha, an official briefed on the talks said. 

The negotiations will seek a short-term ceasefire and the release of some hostages being held by Hamas in exchange for Israel's release of Palestinian prisoners, the official said.

The talks aim to get Israel and Hamas to agree to a halt in fighting for less than a month in the hope it would lead to a more permanent ceasefire.

There was no immediate comment from Hamas but a Palestinian official close to the mediation effort told Reuters: 'I expect Hamas would listen to the new offers, but it remains determined that any agreement must end the war and get Israeli forces out of Gaza.'

The United States, Qatar and Egypt have been leading negotiations to bring an end to the war, which broke out after Hamas fighters stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7 last year, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, by Israeli tallies.

The death toll from Israel's retaliatory campaign in Gaza is approaching 43,000, Gaza health officials say, with the densely populated enclave in ruins.

It was not clear if Egyptian officials were also joining the talks on Sunday.

At least 43 of those killed on Sunday were in northern Gaza, where Israeli troops have returned to root out Hamas fighters who it says have regrouped there.

The United Nations said the plight of Palestinian civilians in northern Gaza was 'unbearable' and the conflict was being 'waged with little regard for the requirements of international humanitarian law'.

'The Secretary-General is shocked by the harrowing levels of death, injury and destruction in the north, with civilians trapped under rubble, the sick and wounded going without life-saving health care, and families lacking food and shelter, amid reports of families being separated and many people detained,' U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.

Israeli authorities were hampering efforts to deliver food, medicine and other essential humanitarian supplies, putting lives at risk, he said. The devastation and deprivation resulting from Israeli military operations in the north were making life there untenable.

Israel says its forces operate in accordance with international law. It says it targets Hamas operatives who conceal themselves among the civilian population which they use as human shields, a charge Hamas denies.

It denies blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza, blaming international organisations for problems distributing it and accusing Hamas of stealing from aid convoys.

Earlier on Sunday, 20 people were killed following an airstrike on houses in Jabalia, the largest of the Gaza Strip's eight historic refugee camps, which has been the focus of an Israeli military offensive for more than three weeks, medics and the Palestinian official news agency WAFA said.

An Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced Palestinian families in Shati camp in Gaza City, killed nine people and wounded 20 others, with many in critical condition, medics said.

Footage circulated on Palestinian media, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed people rushing to the bomb site to help evacuate the casualties. Bodies were scattered on the ground, while some carried wounded children in their arms before loading them in a vehicle.

The Israeli military said it was looking into the report on the strike on the school.

Three local journalists were among those killed at the school in Shati - Saed Radwan, head of digital media at Hamas Al-Aqsa television, Hanin Baroud, and Hamza Abu Selmeya, according to Hamas media.

The Hamas-run Gaza government media office described their deaths as an 'assassination.' This raised the number of Palestinian journalists killed by Israeli fire since Oct 7, 2023 to 180, it added.

On Sunday, Israel's military said it had killed more than 40 militants in the Jabalia area in the past 24 hours, as well as dismantling infrastructure and locating large quantities of military equipment.

In addition, Israel said its forces had eliminated a militant cell in a clash in central Gaza.

Meanwhile, the death toll from an Israeli airstrike late on Saturday on a residential district in the nearby town of Beit Lahiya rose to 40, WAFA said.

The Israeli military said it had carried out 'a precise strike using precise munitions' on Hamas fighters in a building in Beit Lahiya, hitting a number of them.

It said the high number of casualties mentioned in the WAFA report did not align with the type of munitions used in the precision attack.

Israeli military strikes on the towns of Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza have so far killed around 800 people during a three-week offensive, the Gaza health ministry said.