Hamas says it's reviewing an Israel cease-fire proposal as pressure for peace mounts
A new proposal from Israel for a cease-fire in Gaza is reportedly being reviewed by senior Hamas officials on Saturday.
Senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayva said the Palestinian militant group was evaluating Israel's proposal, and "upon completion of its study, it will submit its response."
According to the Associated Press, he gave no further details of Israel's offer but said it was in response to a proposal from Hamas two weeks ago.
Hamas' statement came hours after a high-level Egyptian delegation wrapped up a visit to Israel where it discussed a "new vision" for a prolonged cease-fire in Gaza, according to an Egyptian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to freely discuss the developments.
It was not immediately clear whether Israel's latest response to Hamas on a cease-fire was directly related to the Egyptian mediator's visit to Tel Aviv on Friday.
The discussions between Egyptian and Israeli officials focused on the first stage of a multi-phase plan that would include a limited exchange of hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners, and the return of a significant number of displaced Palestinians to their homes in northern Gaza "with minimum restrictions," the Egyptian official said.
The mediators are working on a compromise that will answer most of both parties' main demands, which could pave the way to continued negotiations with the goal of a larger deal to end the war, the official said.
Next week, Egypt's foreign minister is expected to update international officials in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia during a World Economic Forum meeting, Reuters reported.
Børge Brende, the WEF's president, said at a news conference Saturday that the update will be part of talks between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and several international officials aimed at pushing for a peace agreement in Gaza.
"We do have the key players now in Riyadh and hopefully the discussions can lead into a process towards reconciliation and peace," Brende said, adding that Gaza's humanitarian crisis would be on the agenda of the WEF's meeting.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be traveling to Saudi Arabia to attend the meeting, a State Department spokesperson confirmed Saturday.
Matthew Miller said in a statement that Blinken's agenda will include discussing the ongoing efforts to achieve a cease-fire that secures the release of hostages and the recent increase in humanitarian assistance to Gaza.
"The secretary will also emphasize the importance of preventing the conflict from spreading and discuss ongoing efforts to achieve lasting peace and security in the region, including through a pathway to an independent Palestinian state with security guarantees for Israel," Miller said in a statement.
As the war drags on and casualties mount, there has been growing international pressure for Hamas and Israel to reach an agreement on a cease-fire and avert a possible Israeli attack on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza's 2.3 million people have sought refuge after fleeing fighting elsewhere in the territory.
Israel has been insisting for months it plans a ground offensive into Rafah, on the border with Egypt, where it says many remaining Hamas militants are holed up, despite calls for restraint from the international community including Israel's staunchest ally, the United States.
Egypt has cautioned an offensive into Rafah could have "catastrophic consequences" on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, as well as on regional peace and security.
The Israeli military has massed dozens of tanks and armored vehicles in southern Israel close to Rafah and hit targets in the city in near-daily airstrikes.
Early Saturday, an Israeli airstrike hit a house in Rafah's Tel Sultan neighborhood, killing six people, including four children, according to officials at a local hospital.
The strike killed a man, his wife and their three sons, aged 12, 10 and 8, according to records of the Abu Yousef al-Najjar hospital's morgue. A neighbor's four-month-old girl was also killed, the records showed.
Five people were also killed in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza overnight when an Israeli strike hit a house, according to officials at the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
Elsewhere, Israeli forces shot and killed two Palestinian men in an exchange of fire at a checkpoint in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the military said.
Violence in the West Bank has flared since the war started. Since then, 491 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the territory according to the Ramallah-based Health Ministry,
The Israeli army said the two men were killed after they opened fire from a vehicle at Israeli troops stationed at Salem checkpoint near the Palestinian city of Jenin.
The U.S. has been critical of Israeli policies in the West Bank and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is expected in Israel on Tuesday, has recently determined an army unit committed human rights abuses there before the war in Gaza.
But Blinken said in an undated letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, obtained by CBS News on Friday, that he is postponing a decision on blocking aid to the unit to give Israel more time to right the wrongdoing.
The information comes as Blinken weighs whether to recommend suspending U.S. aid to the unit under a federal measure known as the Leahy Law. The law prevents the U.S. from providing weapons or funds for military assistance to groups when there is credible information indicating the groups have violated human rights.
According to a source with knowledge of the letter, Johnson had demanded assurance from Blinken before he would put a long-delayed foreign aid package to a vote on the House floor. Blinken's letter was delivered to Johnson last Saturday, the day the vote was to take place.
The U.S. has also been building a pier to deliver aid to Gaza through a new port, which an official said last week was on track to start operating by early May.
The Biden administration has stressed there will be no American boots on the ground for the mission. However, the BBC reported Saturday that the British government was considering deploying troops to drive the trucks to carry the aid to the shore, citing unidentified government sources. British officials declined to comment on the report.
Hamas sparked the war with its attack into southern Israel on Oct. 7, in which militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took some 250 people as hostages. Israel says the militants are still holding around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.
Since then, more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's air and ground offensive, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, around two-thirds of them children and women.
Israel has reported at least 260 of its soldiers killed since the start of ground operations in Gaza.