After seven months of devastating war, hopes for a truce continue to be fueled with the arrival of a Hamas delegation in Egypt for negotiations on Saturday May 4. On the ground, deadly Israeli strikes were carried out across Palestinian territory, particularly on Rafah, according to hospital sources and witnesses. This overpopulated southern city still remains threatened by a ground operation, despite international warnings.
In the last twenty-four hours, at least thirty-two deaths have been recorded, according to a press release from the Ministry of Health in Gaza, administered by Hamas. Since the start of the war, 34,654 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip. In addition, the ministry reports 77,908 injured.
The delegation of the Islamist movement, led by Khalil Al-Hayya, number two in the political branch of Hamas in Gaza, arrived in Egypt for a first round of negotiations with “the presence of delegations from Qatar, Egypt and the States -United”, the mediating countries, according to an official of the Palestinian movement.
“Significant progress has been made in the negotiations” between Hamas and Israel, reported the Egyptian media close to intelligence, Al-Qahera News, citing a “high-ranking source”. The Egyptian mediators “reached a consensual formula on most points of disagreement,” added the same source. The Hamas official said several points still needed to be resolved.
Israel will send a delegation to Cairo, where a proposed truce in the Gaza Strip is being discussed, only in the event of “positive progress” on the “framework” of a possible exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners, it said on Saturday a senior Israeli official. “To put it simply, what is being discussed is common ground on the framework of a possible hostage exchange agreement” held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, but “it is necessary to expect long and difficult negotiations before a real agreement,” he explained.
The truce offer on the table includes a forty-day pause in the Israeli offensive in Gaza and the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the release of hostages kidnapped during the unprecedented October 7 Hamas attack in southern Gaza. Israel, which started the war.
An Agence France-Presse correspondent reported bombings and intense fighting in Gaza City (north) on Saturday. Three dead and three injured were pulled from the rubble of a bombed house in a northern neighborhood, according to Gaza civil defense.
Israeli strikes also took place in the center of the Gaza Strip and in Rafah, where the Abu Youssef Al-Najjar hospital said it received a body and several wounded after a bombing on a house. According to the Israeli army, planes struck “terrorist targets” in the area of ??Khan Yunis (South) after a device launched towards a kibbutz in southern Israel fell near the “security fence”.
Nearly 90 U.S. Democratic lawmakers urged President Joe Biden on Friday to consider cutting off arms sales to Israel if the Israeli government does not change its course in its war against Hamas.
The elected officials express their “grave concerns regarding the conduct of the war in Gaza by the Israeli government with regard to the deliberate withholding of humanitarian aid,” in a letter signed by 88 members of Congress delivered to the White House. Israel’s restrictions on the delivery of Washington-backed humanitarian aid to Gaza “contribute to an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe,” the letter said.
The text of the letter specifies, however, that Israeli missile defense systems, such as Iron Dome, must be excluded from this possible suspension of American aid. “We continue to strongly support providing life-saving defensive funding to Israel,” the signatories warn.
