The Japan Times - Heavy fighting rocks Gaza amid rising hope for truce deal

Israeli forces pounded Gaza City with a wave of air strikes, killing more than 50 people on Monday, the civil defence agency reported.

"They bombed schools, homes and even gatherings of people," Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the agency told AFP.

Eleven people were killed and several others injured when an Israeli strike targeted a house belonging to the Jaradah and Abu Khater families in the city's Shujaiya neighbourhood, the agency said in a statement.

Seven people were killed in a strike on a group of Palestinians on Al-Maamal Street in Gaza City, the agency reported.

The remaining casualties occurred in other strikes across Gaza City throughout the day, it added.

The Israeli military said it was looking into these reports.

"There is no room in hospitals to receive the wounded," Bassal said.

The Israeli military also suffered losses on Monday, with five of its soldiers killed in fighting in northern Gaza, the military said in a statement.

Since October 6, the military has been undertaking an offensive in northern Gaza that it says is aimed at preventing Hamas from regrouping there.

The latest deaths bring the Israeli military's losses to 408 in the Gaza military campaign since it began a ground offensive against Hamas in the Palestinian territory on October 27, 2023.

- 'Close to a deal' -

International mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States intensified their efforts to strike a deal that would halt the fighting and secure the release of hostages still held in Gaza.

Qatari leader Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani on Monday met with representatives from Hamas as well as the Middle East envoys from both the outgoing and incoming US administrations as part of those efforts.

White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Monday that a truce deal could be finalised this week.

"I'm not making a promise or prediction, but it is there for the taking and we are going to work to make it happen," Sullivan told reporters.

A Palestinian official close to Hamas and Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said that progress had been made.

"Israel really wants to release the hostages and is working hard to secure a deal," Saar said at a press conference.

"The current round of negotiations is the most serious and deep and has made significant progress," a Palestinian official close to Hamas told AFP on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak on the matter.

However, Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich warned he would oppose any deal that stopped the war.

"The proposed agreement is a catastrophe for Israel's national security," Smotrich said on X. "We will not be part of a surrender deal that involves releasing dangerous terrorists, halting the war, squandering the hard-won achievements paid for in blood and abandoning many hostages still in captivity.

"Now is the time to intensify our efforts, using all available force to fully secure and cleanse the Gaza Strip," he continued.

- Sticking points -

Smotrich, an outspoken member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling coalition, has repeatedly opposed halting the war in Gaza.

His comments came amid rising calls by Israelis, particularly families of hostages still held in Gaza, to reach an accord that would bring home their loved ones.

Smotrich's remarks underline the sharp divides in Netanyahu's ruling coalition over a deal.

Netanyahu could nonetheless muster enough support to pass the deal through his cabinet, even without Smotrich's support.

Successive rounds of negotiations held last year repeatedly failed to produce a deal.

Among the key sticking points in the talks have been disagreements over the permanence of any ceasefire and the scale of humanitarian aid for the Palestinian territory.

Other points of contention include the return of displaced Gazans to their homes, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Palestinian territory and the reopening of border crossings.

Netanyahu has firmly rejected a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and remains opposed to any Palestinian governance of the territory.

The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas's attack on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

On that day, militants also took 251 people hostage, 94 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed 46,584 people, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the United Nations says are reliable.

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S.Suzuki--JT