U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says that Israel has accepted a proposal to bridge differences holding up a cease-fire and hostage release in Gaza. He called on Hamas to do the same.
Blinken on Tuesday was on his ninth urgent mission to the Middle East since the war in Gaza began more than 10 months ago. He did not say whether the “bridging proposal” addressed concerns cited by Hamas.
Even if the militant group accepts the proposal, negotiators will spend the coming days working on “clear understandings on implementing the agreement,” Blinken said. He said there are still “complex issues” requiring “hard decisions by the leaders,” without offering specifics.
Blinken is traveling to Egypt and Qatar on Tuesday for further negotiations after meetings in Israel on Monday.
His visit came days after mediators, including the United States, expressed renewed optimism that a deal was close. His trip also came amid fears the conflict could widen into a deeper regional war following the killings of top militant commanders in Lebanon that Iran blamed on Israel.
Here’s the latest:
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian officials say an Israeli airstrike on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City killed at least 10 people.
The Israeli military said Tuesday’s strike on the Mustafa Hafez school targeted Hamas militants who had set up a command center inside and were planning and launching attacks.
The Palestinian Civil Defense, first responders operating under the Hamas-run government, said the strike killed at least 10 people and that they were still searching for survivors. It said around 700 people were sheltering at the school when it was hit.
Earlier on Tuesday, a strike in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza killed five children and their mother, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where an media reporter counted the bodies.
The hospital said the father, Alaa Abu Zeid, a schoolteacher, has been in Israeli detention for the last nine months.
Bureij is one of several crowded, built-up refugee camps in Gaza that date back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.
Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas because the militants operate in dense residential areas. It has struck several schools-turned-shelters in recent weeks, accusing Hamas fighters of sheltering inside them.
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military says it has recovered the bodies of six hostages taken in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that started the Gaza war.
The military said in a statement Tuesday that its forces recovered the bodies in an overnight operation in southern Gaza. It identified the hostages as Yagev Buchshtab, Alexander Dancyg, Avraham Munder, Yoram Metzger, Nadav Popplewell, and Haim Perry, without saying when or how they died.
The recovery came as the the United States, Egypt and Qatar are trying to mediate a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas that would see the release of scores of hostages held by the militant group.
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