BLOG Netanyahu confirmed that he will invade Rafah stating that there is a date

The Palestinian movement Hamas is considering a truce proposal in three stages, the first of which envisages a six-week ceasefire, a source close to Hamas said this evening in Cairo.

Representatives of the Israeli government and Hamas met on Sunday in Cairo for indirect negotiations through mediators from Egypt, the US and Qatar, who handed over the plan to them.

The new proposal also calls for the first phase of the release of 42 Israeli hostages (including soldiers, children and elderly women) in exchange for 800 to 900 Palestinians held in Israeli jails, including about 100 serving long sentences there, a source close to the negotiations said.

The draft agreement foresees the entry of 400 to 500 trucks of food aid per day into the Gaza Strip and the return of residents of the northern part of the Gaza Strip, the same source added.

In the second phase, it is planned that all other hostages will be released. Israel estimates that there are currently 129 hostages in the Gaza Strip, 34 of whom are dead. In exchange, an unspecified number of Palestinian prisoners would be released.

The third and final phase envisages the complete withdrawal of the Israeli army from the Gaza Strip and the end of the siege of the territory imposed by Israel after Hamas took power in 2007.

After a week-long truce in late November that allowed the release of 80 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners, all other attempts at negotiations have failed.

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US officials reiterated their opposition to any major Israeli operation in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had set a date for the move.

"We have made it clear to Israel that we believe a massive military invasion of Rafah would have an extremely harmful effect on civilians and would ultimately harm Israel's security," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has confirmed his intention to launch a military invasion of the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, saying "there is a date". In a video message today, Netanyahu said the operation in Rafah is essential to Israel's victory in the war.

"It will happen. There is a date," he said, giving no further details. He made the announcement while Israeli negotiators were in Cairo discussing efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement with Hamas.

Netanyahu has repeatedly insisted that Israel must send troops to Rafah, which is considered the last stronghold of the Palestinian Hamas militants, but the international community, including Israel's closest ally the United States, opposes the announced operation, because about 1,4 million civilians who have tended there to be seriously threatened by it.

Official Israel has consistently reiterated that it has a plan to protect civilians.

Israel is buying 40.000 tents to prepare for the Rafah evacuation, an Israeli official said on condition of anonymity.

Allowing people to return to Khan Younis could ease the pressure on Rafah, but many have no homes to return to. The city is also likely full of dangerous unexploded ordnance left over from the fighting.

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The Hamas Health Ministry announced today that 33.207 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war against Israel.

In the past 24 hours, 32 people were killed, reports AFP.

As the announcement adds, since October 7 last year, when the war began, 75.933 Palestinians have been injured.

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The Israeli army announced that it killed the commander of an elite Hezbollah unit in an attack in southern Lebanon last night.

Israeli fighters "eliminated Ali Ahmad Hussein, the commander of the Al-Radwan forces of the Hezbollah terrorist organization, in the Al-Hujair region," according to a statement from the Israeli army.

Since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip on October 7, clashes have also been daily between the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Israeli army.

Hezbollah supports the Palestinian movement Hamas, which is in power in Gaza.

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A Hamas official told Reuters that no progress had been made in a new round of Gaza ceasefire talks in Cairo attended by delegations from Israel, Qatar and the United States.

"There is no change in the position of the occupation and therefore there is nothing new in the negotiations in Cairo," an unnamed official of Hamas, an organization designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, told Reuters.

"There is no progress yet," he added.

Earlier on Monday, Egypt's state-run Al-Qahera News channel quoted a senior Egyptian source as saying that progress had been made in the talks, after an agreement was reached among the participating delegations on the issues under discussion.

Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt on Sunday following the arrival of US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director William Burns on Saturday, whose presence underscored US pressure for a deal to free Gaza hostages and ease the humanitarian crisis there.

Israel and Hamas, which have been at war in the Gaza Strip since October, have so far failed to resolve differences over their main demands.

Hamas wants an end to the Israeli offensive and a complete withdrawal of Israel from its territory, while Israel wants an agreement to release hostages from Gaza in exchange for a certain number of Palestinians in its prisons without committing to end the war.

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A Hamas delegation has arrived in Cairo for the latest round of talks to secure a ceasefire and an agreement on the release of hostages in Gaza, according to a statement released by the organization.

The statement said the Hamas team met with Abbas Kamel of Egypt's intelligence agency and "confirmed its commitment" to previous demands that any release of the hostages be conditional on a full ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, along with the return of displaced Palestinians and an increase in humanitarian aid. reports Reuters.

Conflict between Israel and Hamas - 185th day.

Thousands of Israelis demonstrated yesterday in Jerusalem demanding the release of the hostages, in support of the families of the hostages held in Gaza, exactly six months since they were abducted during the Hamas attack on southern Israel.

Gathered outside the Knesset, Israel's parliament, which is on recess to celebrate the Jewish Easter, protesters chanted slogans such as "Alive and alive, not in coffins" and "All free now. Agreement now."

Agam Goldstein, 17, who was freed during a week-long truce between Israel and Hamas in late November, took to the podium to tell the hostages still held in Gaza to hang on.

Before her, women who had plastered their mouths with the number 184 (the number of days since October 7 that the hostages have been detained) waved pictures of 14 women still in the hands of their captors.

Ofri Bibas, whose brother Jarden, daughter-in-law Shiri and their two children, four-year-old Ariel and one-year-old Kfir are among the hostages, addressed the crowd and urged them not to forget them.

Kfir Bibas is the youngest of the 250 hostages kidnapped by Hamas on October 7. He and his brother are the only minors among the 129 hostages still being held in Gaza, of whom Israeli authorities believe 34 have died.

Another round of intermediate negotiations between Hamas and Israel through international mediators - the US, Qatar and Egypt - is to be held in Cairo, where negotiators from various sides have already arrived or are waiting in the hope of reaching an agreement on a truce and the release of hostages.

Hamas and Israel accuse each other of blocking the talks.