At least 38 killed as ceasefire talks reach critical point

Israeli warplanes carried out a series of strikes in Gaza on Sunday that hospital officials said killed at least 38 Palestinians, as talks over a ceasefire in the shattered territory reached a breaking point, The Guardian notes.

Officials at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis said 18 people were killed in the strikes in al-Mawasi, a nearby coastal area that is filled with tent camps of those displaced by fighting elsewhere.

Israeli attacks in Gaza have killed 80 people and injured 304 in the past 24 hours, according to the Health Ministry.

Late Sunday, the Israeli military also said it had struck Houthi targets in the ports of Hodeida, Ras Isa and Salif, as well as the Ras Qantib power plant in Yemen, in response to repeated attacks on Israel by the Iran-aligned group, the Israeli military said.

Israel has stepped up its offensive in the Gaza Strip in recent days as talks gather momentum over a US-backed proposal that could end the 21-month war.

Speaking before leaving Israel for talks with Donald Trump in Washington on a cease-fire and other regional issues, Benjamin Netanyahu said late Sunday he was determined to secure the return of hostages held in Gaza and end the Hamas threat to Israel, repeating promises he has made repeatedly throughout the conflict. He also spoke of regional opportunities after Israel's brief war with Iran last month, which ended with a U.S.-imposed cease-fire after Trump sent bombers to attack three Iranian nuclear sites.

“We have never had such a friend in the White House… We have already changed the face of the Middle East beyond recognition, and we have the opportunity to change it even more and ensure a great future for the state of Israel, the people of Israel and the entire Middle East,” Prime Minister Netanyahu told reporters at the airport.

This will be Netanyahu's third visit to the White House since Trump returned to power nearly six months ago, The Guardian notes.

Trump said he believed a hostage-release and cease-fire agreement could be reached this week, which could lead to the release of “quite a few hostages.” “I think there’s a good chance we’ll have a deal with Hamas within a week,” Trump told reporters before flying back to Washington after a weekend of golf in New Jersey.

A draft of the proposed 60-day pause in military action seen by the Guardian indicates that Trump himself will announce the deal, which some hoped could be concluded before his meeting with Netanyahu scheduled for Monday evening US time.

On Tuesday, the US president said in a social media post that Israel had agreed to “the necessary conditions to complete” the deal, while Hamas said on Friday it had responded “positively” to the US-backed proposal.

Israel on Saturday rejected a series of changes to the proposed deal demanded by Hamas, and Netanyahu stressed on Sunday that the negotiators he sent to a new round of proxy ceasefire talks in Qatar had “clear instructions” to reach an agreement but without concessions.

“We are working to achieve a widely discussed deal on the terms we have agreed to … I believe that talking with President Trump can definitely help achieve the outcome we all hope for,” the Israeli leader said.

In Gaza City, there was tension, hope and anxiety, The Guardian reports. “We pray to God that this time the truce will succeed. Despite hearing so many times about a possible truce, it has always failed and now we are afraid to even hope,” says Abu Adham Abu Amro, 55, a local resident. “There is no trust left because of the ongoing disagreements between the Palestinian and Israeli sides – one side agrees, the other refuses, and so on.”

Public pressure is mounting in Israel for a deal to free all hostages still held in Gaza.

Vicky Cohen, the mother of a soldier held by Hamas in Gaza, said Israelis could only recover from the trauma of the 2023 attack if all the hostages were returned. “Israelis look after each other... We will not leave anyone behind and we will bring them all back. These are the values ​​that Israel was founded on. I hope our prime minister has the courage to do the right thing,” she said.

Israel's military offensive in Gaza has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, displaced almost the entire 2.3 million population and left much of the area in ruins, The Guardian notes.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not yet commented on the individual Gaza strikes reported on Sunday, but said 130 targets had been hit across the territory in the previous 24 hours, including militants, Hamas command and control structures, warehouses, weapons and launchers. The IDF also said the attack on a Gaza City cafe last Monday, which killed or wounded about 100 people, including many women, children and elderly people, occurred during a meeting of senior Hamas commanders. Experts said the strike, which dropped a 500-pound bomb on a terrace crowded with waiters, families and students, could constitute a war crime.

IDF sources told the Times of Israel that Ramzi Ramadan Abd Ali Salah, who headed Hamas' naval forces in northern Gaza, and several other Hamas commanders were killed in the attack.

In recent weeks, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers as they gathered in large crowds to obtain food from looted convoys, UN-distributed supplies or from sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Fund, a private US- and Israeli-backed organisation that began operations last month, The Guardian reports.

Israel's security cabinet said Saturday it would allow aid agencies to resume sending convoys to northern Gaza, where the territory's humanitarian crisis is most acute. The move has been opposed by far-right members of Israel's ruling coalition, who say any aid will be stolen by Hamas and that no one should be allowed into Gaza.