Top US diplomat Antony Blinken has urged Hamas to accept a Gaza truce plan despite an Israeli warning that the army will keep fighting the Palestinian militant group after any ceasefire.Talks on a potential truce and hostage release deal to pause the bloodiest ever Gaza war have been held in Cairo, involving US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators.The war started with Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
The militants also took about 250 hostages. Israel estimates that 129 captives remain in Gaza, but the military says 34 of them are dead.
Israel’s massive retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,568 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
Widespread bombing has left Gaza filled with “more rubble than Ukraine”, a UN agency said, warning that clearance efforts will be hampered by unexploded ordnance and toxic asbestos.
Israel also imposed a siege on Gaza’s 2.4 million people that has sharply restricted access to food, drinking water, medicines, fuel and power.
UN agencies have warned that without urgent intervention, famine looms in Gaza, and the United States has also strongly urged Israel to speed up aid deliveries.
“The progress is real, but given the immense need in Gaza, it needs to be accelerated. It needs to be sustained,” said Blinken as he visited the port of Ashdod, reopened to aid after US appeals.
Blinken saw off a Jordanian aid convoy that was heading to the newly reopened Erez crossing between Israel and Gaza, and later the US-based charity World Central Kitchen said it had resumed work in Gaza.
The Israeli army confirmed that “for the first time since the beginning of the war, the Erez crossing has been opened for the entry of humanitarian aid”.
Israel has faced mounting international pressure over its conduct of the war, with Colombia on Wednesday announcing that it was cutting diplomatic ties — a move Israel said was a “reward” for Hamas.
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