Israeli forces on Monday killed three Palestinians in Gaza near the line demarcating areas of Israeli control, underlining the struggle to broaden a fragile ceasefire deal approved more than six weeks ago to global acclaim.
Palestinian medics said the incidents involved an Israeli drone firing a missile at a group of people east of Khan Younis, killing two and wounding another, and a tank shell killing a person on the eastern side of Gaza City.
Israel’s military said it had fired after identifying what it called “terrorists” crossing what is known as the yellow line and approaching its troops, posing an immediate threat to them.
Photo: EPA
The armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group in a statement later on Monday said that it had located the body of a hostage in an area controlled by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip. It did not say when the handover would take place.
The hostage’s body is one of three still in Gaza.
Palestinian militant group Hamas and Israel signed a truce on Oct. 9, halting two years of devastating warfare, but the agreement left the most intractable disputes for further talks, freezing the conflict without resolving it.
Hamas released all 20 surviving hostages still held in Gaza in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and wartime detainees held by Israel.
The agreement also provided for the return of the remains of 28 hostages in exchange for the remains of 360 militants.
Both sides have, since the deal, accused each other of deadly breaches of existing commitments in the agreement and of pushing back against later steps required by US President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza.
The health ministry in Gaza on Monday said that at least 342 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli fire since the start of the truce on Oct. 10. Israel says three of its soldiers have been killed by militant gunfire in the same period.
The UN Security Council last week gave formal backing to Trump’s plan, which calls for an interim technocratic Palestinian government in Gaza, overseen by an international “board of peace” and backed by an international security force.
Trump’s plan also requires reform of the Palestinian Authority, based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Former British prime minister Tony Blair, who helped the US develop the plan and who Trump has said might join the board of peace, met Palestinian Authority Deputy Leader Hussein al-Sheikh in the West Bank on Sunday.
Al-Sheikh on social media said that they had discussed developments following the UN Security Council resolution and requirements for Palestinian self-determination.
A Hamas delegation in Cairo, led by its exiled chief Khalil al-Hayya, held talks with Egyptian officials on exploring the next phase of the ceasefire, Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem said.
Qassem acknowledged that the path to the second phase of the ceasefire was complex and said the Islamist group had told Egypt, a mediator in the conflict, that Israeli violations were undermining the agreement.
Agreeing on the makeup and mandate of the international security force has been particularly challenging.
Israel has said the multinational force must disarm Hamas, a step the group has so far resisted without Palestinian statehood, which Trump’s plan broadly envisages as the ultimate stage, but which Israel has ruled out.
Qassem said the force must have a role in keeping Israel’s military away from Palestinian civilians.
“There is complete uncertainty; the Americans haven’t put forward a detailed plan. It is unclear what kind of forces, what their tasks are, what their roles are, and where they will be stationed,” said a Palestinian official close to the Cairo talks who spoke on condition that he was not further identified. “Any deployment of forces without a political track, without an understanding with all Palestinian factions and powers in Gaza, would complicate things even further.”
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