Gaza war rages as mediators study Hamas reply to truce plan
Jerusalem: Deadly fighting rocked Gaza on Wednesday as US top diplomat Antony Blinken on a Middle East tour pushed for an elusive truce and hostage release deal to end the war raging since October 7.
Northern Israel meanwhile came under repeated barrages of rocket fire from Hezbollah in Lebanon, a day after an Israeli air strike killed a senior commander of the militant group allied with Hamas.
And in Geneva, a UN investigation concluded on Wednesday that Israel has committed crimes against humanity during the war in Gaza, and that both parties to the bloody conflict were guilty of war crimes.
US Secretary of State Blinken arrived in the Gulf emirate of Qatar on his latest regional crisis tour, to promote a ceasefire deal outlined by President Joe Biden on May 31.
US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators were studying a reply Hamas issued late Tuesday, but there was no news of a breakthrough as Hamas has insisted on a complete end to the war, a demand rejected by Israel. Hamas and their allies Islamic Jihad said that their response calls for “a complete halt to the ongoing aggression on Gaza”. Hamas proposed amendments including a ceasefire timeline and the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, a source familiar with the talks said.
As the Gaza war has raged for more than eight months, claiming a spiralling civilian death toll in the besieged territory, deadly violence has also flared along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.
An Israeli strike Tuesday killed Hezbollah commander Taleb Sami Abdallah, described by a Lebanese military source as the group’s “most important” fighter killed in the war so far.
The Israeli military confirmed it had “eliminated” Abdallah, whom it called “one of Hezbollah’s most senior commanders in southern Lebanon” who had “planned, advanced and carried out a large number of terror attacks against Israeli civilians”.
On Wednesday morning, air raid sirens blared across northern Israel as three waves of about 160 rockets and missiles filled the sky.
Several were intercepted by Israeli air defences while others struck inside northern Israel sparking fires, the military said, reporting no casualties.
