Hamas gives 'initial' support to Gaza truce plan as fighting rages
- Last updated: February 2, 2024 | 23:11
Fighting raged on Friday in Gaza with scores reported killed overnight, after mediator Qatar said Hamas had given its "initial" support to a hostage-prisoner exchange deal that would pause its war with Israel.
The Gaza health ministry said 112 people had been killed over the previous 24 hours, and the Hamas press office reported Israeli air and artillery bombardment around Khan Yunis — southern Gaza's main city and the focus of recent fighting.
AFP video footage showed people fleeing under the sound of gunfire in Khan Yunis, as black smoke billowed from an explosion nearby.
Some Palestinians wore hazmat suits left over from the Covid pandemic to protect themselves from the harsh weather.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli snipers were firing at one of its buildings where thousands of displaced people were sheltering.
"Our crews are unable to transport a number of wounded to Al Amal hospital because of the continued gunfire," it said. There was no immediate response from the Israeli military.
Nearly four months of fighting have left Gaza "uninhabitable," the United Nations says, while an Israeli siege has resulted in dire shortages of food, water, fuel and medicines.
Imagery analysis released on Friday by the UN's satellite centre UNITAR based on footage collected on Jan.6 and 7 shows that "approximately 30 per cent" of Gaza's structures have been affected by the war.
"The new findings provide an estimated figure of 93,800 housing units damaged in the Gaza Strip," UNITAR said.
Mother nature also piled havoc on Gaza, with winter storms on Friday bringing torrential rain and more misery for hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians sheltering in bombed out buildings and makeshift camps.
Qatar's foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari said there were hopes of "good news" about a fresh pause to the fighting "in the next couple of weeks," after a truce proposal agreed with Israeli negotiators was presented to Hamas.
Three-stage truce plan
The plan, thrashed out with Israeli negotiators by Egyptian, Qatari and US mediators in Paris earlier this week, had received a "positive" initial response from Hamas, Ansari said.
"That proposal has been approved by the Israeli side and now we have an initial positive confirmation from the Hamas side," he said. But a source close to Hamas told AFP: "There is no agreement on the framework of the agreement yet — the factions have important observations — and the Qatari statement is rushed and not true."
A Hamas source said the group had been presented with a three-stage plan which would start with an initial six-week halt to the fighting that would see more aid deliveries into Gaza.
The pause would also see the release of "women, children and sick men over 60" among the Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israel, the source said, requesting anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.
Settler sanctions
Violence has also flared in the occupied West Bank, where more than 370 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops and settlers since October 7.
In a rare move against Israel, the United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on four Israeli settlers over the violence, blocking their assets in the US and forbidding Americans from financial transactions with them.
Agence France-Presse