Egypt proposes 2-day truce in Gaza, release of 4 hostages

Egypt’s president says proposal would see talks resuming within 10 days of two-day truce to forge permanent ceasefire.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Sunday proposed a two-day truce in Gaza and limited hostage exchange aimed at securing “a complete ceasefire” after more than a year of war between Israel and Hamas.

The proposal includes exchanging four Israeli hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, and would be followed by more negotiations within 10 days, Sisi said at a news conference in Cairo.

He did not say whether the plan had been formally presented to either Israel or Hamas.

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Sisi’s intervention came with Israel continuing to pound the Palestinian territory while also fighting a war against Hezbollah in Lebanon and having just launched air strikes on its major foe Iran.

The strikes on Saturday, the second time Israel has retaliated against Iranian ballistic missile attacks, triggered global calls for restraint.

The UN Security Council will meet on Monday at Iran’s request, with Tehran calling for the body to condemn the strikes that killed four soldiers.

At home, Iranian leaders played down their importance, saying the strikes had caused only limited damage.

President Masoud Pezeshkian told his cabinet Iran did not want war but would deliver “an appropriate response”.

According to Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, Tehran had “received indications” hours before the attack. US news site Axios reported earlier that Israel had provided a warning so as to “prevent a wider escalation”.

Israel launched the strikes in retaliation for an October 1 missile attack by Iran, which was a response to the killings of Tehran-aligned militant leaders and an Iranian commander.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the operation “was precise and powerful, achieving all of its objectives”.

Netanyahu, speaking at a memorial event in Jerusalem for Hamas’s October 7 attack that sparked the war, was interrupted by shouting from relatives of victims in the crowd.

There has been public and diplomatic pressure on Netanyahu to do more to strike a deal to secure the release of the remaining captives held in Gaza.

Egypt, alongside Qatar and the United States, has for months been mediating indirect talks with little success.

Israeli spy chief David Barnea was due in Qatar on Sunday for talks aimed at restarting negotiations towards a hostage deal.

Families of the hostages have called on the Israeli government to broker an agreement in the wake of the killing of Hamas’ leader Yahya Sinwar earlier this month.

Israeli and US officials as well as some analysts said Sinwar had been a key obstacle to a deal.

Among the key issues preventing a breakthrough in talks has been Hamas’s insistence that Israel withdraw completely from Gaza, which Israeli officials have repeatedly rejected.

Earlier on Sunday, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said “painful concessions” would be needed in negotiations and that military action alone would not achieve the country’s war aims.

Out of 251 hostages seized by Palestinian militants during the October 7 attack, 97 are still held in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

More than 100 were released during a one-week truce last November.

Against the already charged backdrop, a truck crashed into a crowd of people near a central Israel intelligence complex, killing one man and injuring more than two dozen people.

Israel continued to fight in Gaza and Lebanon, where strikes hit Beirut and multiple southern cities.

The Lebanese health ministry said at least 21 people were killed in Israeli strikes on south Lebanon on Sunday, including at least nine near Sidon city and seven - three of them rescuers - in the southern village of Ain Baal, closer to the Israeli border.

The war has left at least 1,615 people dead in Lebanon since September 23, according to an Agence France-Presse tally based on official figures, though the real number is likely to be higher due to gaps in the data.

The Israeli military said early on Sunday it had killed 70 Hezbollah fighters while losing five of its own soldiers in fighting, taking to 37 the death toll among troops since the start of ground operations in Lebanon late last month.

Heavy bombing also continued in Gaza. The Israeli military said it had killed another 40 militants in the territory.

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres expressed deep concern for the fate of Gaza’s civilians, weeks into a major Israeli operation in the territory’s north.

“The plight of Palestinian civilians trapped in north Gaza is unbearable,” Guterres’ spokesman said.

On the ground, resident Bilal al-Hajri said: “We are really dying under a tight siege and famine”.

“None of us can leave home even to provide some food and drink,” said the Palestinian man.

“Anyone who leaves is targeted.”

Speaking in Cairo, Sisi warned of famine and said it was “very important that aid enters as soon as possible”.

With the sweeping assault ongoing, Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Sunday an Israeli strike on a school building sheltering displaced Palestinians killed at least nine people. The Israeli military said it was looking into the report.

Israel launched the offensive in Gaza a year ago after Hamas’ October 7 attack that resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an Agence France-Presse tally of official Israeli figures.

At least 42,924 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, have been killed in the Israeli offensive on Gaza, according to figures from the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry, which the UN considers reliable.

The war has since drawn in Iran-backed groups across the region, most notably Hezbollah in Lebanon, but also militias in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

Source:  AFP
--Agencies