Egypt sends delegation to Israel for Gaza talks

An Egyptian delegation met Israeli officials yesterday, looking for a way to restart talks to end the offensive in Gaza and return the remaining Israeli hostages, an official briefed on the meetings said.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Israel had no new proposals to make, although it was willing to consider a limited truce in which 33 hostages would be released, instead of the 40 previously under discussion.

There was no decision on how long any truce would last but if such an exchange were agreed, the pause in fighting would be "definitely less than six weeks," the official said.

• Israel 'won't achieve' goals in Rafah: Hamas
• Hezbollah, Israel trade cross-border fire
• Death toll in enclave rises to 34,356

The effort comes alongside preparations for a military push against Hamas in southern Gaza's Rafah, and with spillover from the Gaza offensive leading to stepped-up exchanges of fire over Israel's northern border with Lebanon.

Israel's army said yesterday missile fire near the border killed an Israeli civilian.

Qatar, Egypt and the United States have mediated truce and hostage-release talks, so far without success since a one-week halt to the fighting in November. That truce saw the exchange of 80 Israeli captives in return for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

The source told AFP that Egypt's delegation was travelling to Israel "for security coordination".

Several Israeli media outlets, citing unnamed officials, said yesterday that the Israeli war cabinet discussed a new plan for a truce and hostage release, ahead of the Egyptian delegation's visit.

Aid groups warn any Rafah invasion would add to already-catastrophic conditions in Gaza where, according to the World Food Programme, famine is "a real and dangerous threat".

Senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad, meanwhile, told AFP that Israel "will not achieve what it wants" in Rafah.

After mediators failed to secure a truce for the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan, which ended early this month, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani said last week that Qatar was reassessing its role.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said yesterday that at least 34,356 people have been killed in the territory during more than six months of offensive. The tally includes at least 51 deaths in the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said.

The Pentagon said Thursday that the US military had begun construction of a "temporary pier" off Gaza's coast to boost shipments of desperately needed aid.

US President Joe Biden announced the plan in early March, as international calls intensified for Israel to facilitate more aid access to the territory.

Opposition to a military operation in Rafah extended to protesting university students in the United States. "Stop the invasion! Hands off Rafah!" said a sign among a pro-Palestinian encampment at George Washington University in the US capital.

The campus is one of many across the country -- Israel's biggest military supplier -- where protests over Israel's offensive in Gaza have spread.