Hamas reviews truce plan as conflict rages

GAZA STRIP — Hamas is reviewing a proposal for a six-week truce in its fighting with Israel, a source told Agence France-Presse on Wednesday, as fighting raged in southern Gaza and the UN sought to restore aid funding.

Israeli strikes killed at least 125 people overnight and into the early morning across the Palestinian territory, the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip said, while the military announced it had begun flooding the militants' tunnels.

AFPTV footage showed smoke rising over central Gaza and Khan Younis, the coastal strip's main southern city that has become the focus of fighting in recent weeks.

As Qatari- and Egyptian-led mediation efforts gathered pace, a Hamas official said the group's leader Ismail Haniyeh was due to be in Cairo on Thursday to discuss the truce proposal.

A separate Hamas source told AFP the three-stage plan would start with an initial six-week halt to the fighting, now in its fourth month, that will see more aid deliveries into the besieged Gaza Strip.

Only "women, children and sick men over 60" held by Gaza militants will be freed during that stage in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israel, the source said, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the talks.

There would also be "negotiations around the withdrawal of Israeli forces," with possible additional phases involving more hostage-prisoner exchanges, said the source, adding that the territory's rebuilding is also among the issues addressed by the deal.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ruled out withdrawing forces from Gaza.

'Constructive' talks

He has also ruled out releasing "thousands" of Palestinian prisoners as part of any deal, though his office earlier called the talks "constructive".

Ron Dermer, an Israeli minister close to Netanyahu, met on Wednesday with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan in Washington, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due for another Middle East trip in the "coming days", a US official said.

The United States was among several top donor countries that suspended funding to the UN's aid agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a UN committee he had "met with donors to listen to their concerns and to outline the steps we are taking".

He called UNRWA "the backbone of all humanitarian response in Gaza".

UNRWA spokeswoman Tamara Alrifai said the agency supports "an independent investigation" into the Israeli claims that led to the funding crisis. Israel accused several UNRWA staff members, out of the agency's 33,000, of involvement in the Oct 7 attack that sparked the conflict.

Alrifai said "if the countries that suspended their funding to UNRWA maintain their decision, the impact will be catastrophic on the people of Gaza" who face mass displacement, threats of disease and famine and dire shortages.

The conflict was triggered by Hamas' Oct 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Militants also seized about 250 hostages. Israel says 132 of them remain in Gaza, including at least 29 people believed to have been killed.

Following the deadliest attack in Israel's history, its military launched a withering air, land and sea offensive that has killed at least 26,900 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the territory's health ministry.

Agencies Via Xinhua