CAIRO: Israeli forces continued their operations near the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis on Monday amid an international push for a deal to end fighting in Gaza and block a slide into a wider regional conflict with Iran and its proxies.
Palestinian medics said at least 16 people were killed and several wounded in Israeli military strikes in several areas of Khan Younis on Monday. Meanwhile, more families and displaced people have flowed out of areas threatened by new evacuation orders that told people to clear the area.
As fighting continued in several areas of the Gaza Strip, Hamas reacted skeptically to the latest round of talks brokered by Egypt and Qatar, due to take place on Thursday, saying it had seen no sign of movement from the Israeli side.
The group said in a statement Sunday that mediators should force Israel to accept a cease-fire proposal based on US President Joe Biden's ideas that Hamas has accepted, “instead of pursuing further rounds of negotiations or new proposals that would cover up the occupier's aggression.” .”
Two sources close to Hamas said the group believed the new call for talks was pre-arranged with Israel to contain an Iranian-Hezbollah response to the killings of the group's head, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran and a top Hezbollah leader in Lebanon.
“This is, one might say, a soft refusal. If Hamas gets a workable plan, Israel's positive response to the offer it has accepted could change things, but for now Hamas believes Netanyahu is not serious about reaching a deal,” said one Palestinian official close to the mediation effort.
Hamas's response to the talks came as preparations for a larger confrontation mounted, with Washington ordering a guided-missile submarine to the Middle East and the Abraham Lincoln Strike Group accelerating its deployment to the region.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant has told US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin that Iran is preparing for a large-scale military attack on Israel, Barak Ravid, a normally well-informed Axios News reporter, reported on Twitter.
Israel has been poised for a major attack since last month, when a rocket attack killed 12 young men in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Israel retaliated by killing a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut.
A day after this operation, Ismail Haniya, the political leader of Hamas, was killed in Tehran, which led Iran to retaliate against Israel.
The potential escalation underscored the extent to which the Middle East has been thrown into disarray by the war in Gaza, now in its 11th month.
A Hamas-led attack on Israeli communities around the Gaza Strip killed about 1,200 people, with more than 250 captured in Gaza, according to Israeli estimates, in one of the most devastating attacks on Israel in its history.
In response, Israeli forces leveled Gaza, displaced much of the population and killed an estimated 40,000 people, according to the Palestinian health ministry, in a war that horrified the world.
Dozens of people were killed Saturday in Israeli strikes on a school building in Gaza City, which the military said were targeted by fighters from the armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Gaza health officials say most of the victims were civilians, but Israel says at least a third are fighters. Israel says it has lost 329 soldiers in Gaza.
