The United States along with Arab mediators, is attempting to conclude an agreement between Israel and Hamas to halt the 14-month-old war in the Gaza Strip where medics said Israeli strikes killed at least 20 Palestinians overnight.
A Palestinian official who knows about the negotiations said on Wednesday that mediators had narrowed gaps on most of the agreement’s clauses.
He said Israel had introduced conditions which Hamas rejected but would not elaborate.
On Tuesday, sources close to the talks in Cairo, the Egyptian capital, said an agreement could be signed in coming days on a ceasefire and release of hostages held in Gaza in return for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Medics said an Israeli airstrike killed at least 10 persons in a house in the northern town of Beit Lahiya while six were killed in separate airstrikes in Gaza City, Nuseirat camp in central areas, and Rafah near the border with Egypt.
In Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, medics said four people were killed in an airstrike on a house.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military spokesman.
Israeli forces have operated in the towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya and the nearby Jabalia camp since October.
The military said that the campaign aims to prevent Hamas militants from regrouping.
Palestinians accuse Israel of carrying out acts of “ethnic cleansing” to depopulate the northern edge of the enclave to create a buffer zone.
Israel denies it.
Hamas does not disclose its casualties, and the Palestinian health ministry does not distinguish in its daily toll between combatants and non-combatants.
On Wednesday, the Israeli military said it struck a number of Hamas militants planning an imminent attack against Israeli forces operating in Jabalia.
Later on Wednesday, Muhammad Saleh, Director of Al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia, said Israeli shelling in the vicinity damaged the facility.
Seven medics and a patient inside the hospital were wounded in the shelling.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
In the Central Gaza camp of Bureij, Palestinian families began leaving some districts after the Army posted new evacuation orders on X.
The Army also sent text and audio messages to mobile phones of some of the population there, citing new firing of rockets by Palestinian militants from the area.
The U.S. administration, along with mediators from Egypt and Qatar, has made intensive efforts in recent days to advance the talks before President Joe Biden leaves office next month.
In Jerusalem, Israeli President Isaac Herzog met Adam Boehler, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s designated envoy for hostage affairs.
Trump has threatened that “all hell is going to break out” if Hamas does not release its hostages by January 20, the day Trump returns to the White House.
CIA Director William Burns was expected in Doha on Wednesday for talks with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on bridging remaining gaps between Israel and Hamas, other knowledgeable sources said.
The CIA declined to comment.
Israeli negotiators were in Doha on Monday looking to bridge gaps between Israel and Hamas on a deal Biden outlined in May.
There have been repeated rounds of talks over the past year, all of which have failed, with Israel insisting on retaining a military presence in Gaza and Hamas refusing to release hostages until the troops pulled out.
The war in Gaza, triggered by a Hamas-led attack on communities in southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people and saw more than 250 abducted as hostages, has sent shock waves across the Middle East and left Israel isolated internationally.
Israel’s campaign has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, displaced most of the 2.3 million population and reduced much of the coastal enclave to ruins.
(With inputs from Reuters)
