The Palestinian group Hamas said yesterday it would not take part in a new round of Gaza ceasefire talks slated for today in Qatar, dimming hopes for a negotiated truce that Iranian sources say could hold back an Iranian attack on Israel.
The US has said it expects indirect talks to go ahead as planned in Qatar’s capital Doha today, and that a ceasefire agreement was still possible. However, Axios reported that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has postponed a trip to the Middle East that had been expected to begin on Tuesday.
Three senior Iranian officials have said that only a ceasefire deal in Gaza would hold Iran back from direct retaliation against Israel for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on its soil last month.
The Israeli government said it would send a delegation to today’s talks, but Hamas, the Palestinian group that controls Gaza, requested a workable plan to implement a proposal it has already accepted rather than more talks.
“Hamas is committed to the proposal presented to it on July 2, which is based on the US Security Council resolution and the Biden speech and the movement is prepared to immediately begin discussion over a mechanism to implement it,” Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters.
There has been no let-up in fighting in Gaza, where residents of the southern city of Khan Younis said Israeli forces blew up homes in the east and intensified tank shelling on eastern areas of the city centre.
Israel said it was responding to Hamas rocket fire towards Tel Aviv on Tuesday and had struck “rocket launching pads and militants among 40 military targets over 24 hours, including in central Gaza, Khan Younis, and western Rafah in the south”.
Armed groups of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said they had attacked Israeli forces in several areas, while Palestinian health officials said Israeli strikes had killed at least 14 people yesterday, mostly in the centre and south.
Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 39,965 Palestinians and wounded 92,294 since October 7, the Palestinian enclave’s health ministry said yesterday. A total of 36 Palestinians have been killed and 54 wounded in the past 24 hours, the ministry said in a statement.
