Under mounting pressure to end the war, now approaching its 22nd month, the Israeli premier is scheduled to sit down on Monday with Trump, who has recently made a renewed push to end the fighting.
He added he had dispatched the team to Doha “with clear instructions”, and thought the meeting with Trump “can definitely help advance this (deal), which we are all hoping for”.
Later Sunday, a Palestinian official familiar with the talks told AFP that indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas towards a ceasefire deal in the Gaza Strip had started in Qatar.
Speaking to reporters Sunday, Trump said: “I think there’s a good chance we have a deal with Hamas during the week, during the coming week.”
Earlier Sunday, a Palestinian official told AFP that Hamas would also seek the reopening of Gaza’s Rafah crossing to evacuate the wounded. Hamas’s top negotiator Khalil al-Hayya was leading the delegation in Doha, the official told AFP.
However, they said, the group was also demanding certain conditions for Israel’s withdrawal, guarantees against a resumption of fighting during negotiations, and the return of the UN-led aid distribution system.
It said 10 had been killed in a pre-dawn strike on Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, where AFP images showed Palestinians searching through the debris for survivors with their bare hands.
“We are losing young people, families and children every day, and this must stop now. Enough blood has been shed.”
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it could not comment on specific strikes without precise coordinates.
Of the 251 hostages taken by Palestinian militants during the 2023 attack, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
‘Hunger as a weapon’
Karima al-Ras, from Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, said “we hope that a truce will be announced” to allow in more aid.
A US- and Israel-backed group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, took the lead in food distribution in the territory in late May, when Israel partially lifted a more than two-month blockade on aid deliveries.
The UN human rights office said last week that more than 500 people had been killed waiting to access food from GHF distribution points.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a frequent critic of Israel, again accused it of committing “genocide” in Gaza at a meeting of the 11 BRICS emerging nations in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday.
Hamas’s October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 57,418 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations considers the figures reliable.
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