Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has said in a Telegram post that “we are close to reaching a deal on a truce.”
Intense negotiations mediated by Qatar have been under way.
According to Izzat al-Rishq, a Hamas official, the agreement will include a ceasefire, arrangements for aid trucks to supply all areas in Gaza and transferring the injured to other countries for treatment.
It will also include a captives’ exchange deal to release Palestinian women and children in Israeli prisons for Israeli women and children.
Israel is yet to confirm such a deal.
Al-Rishq said that talks were continuing for weeks but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was stalling, adding that the deal was agreed upon by all the brigades in the Palestinian resistance through phone calls.
Meanwhile, Richard Brennan, a WHO official based in Cairo, gave an update on the condition of 28 premature babies evacuated to Egypt from Gaza on Monday.
Speaking to a news agency in Australia on Tuesday, Brennan said the babies were “not out of the woods yet” but he was “cautiously optimistic” they would make a recovery.
He added that the babies need intensive care for some time to come.
Brennan also said a number of the babies had been orphaned.
“We originally were told that none of them [their parents] could be found but, as we’ve heard over the last 24 hours, several did turn up,” he said.
“So that’s a huge relief for those little ones,” he added.
The newborns had been patients at al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest medical facility, where officials say eight infants died amid the Israeli military’s ground and air assault on the enclave.
Kirby Says “Genocide” Is Being Used Inappropriately
Responding to a reporter’s question about some pro-Palestinian protesters calling US President Joe Biden “Genocide Joe”, US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said that people have the right to say what they want, but the word “genocide” is being thrown around inappropriately.
Last week, a group of UN experts, including several special rapporteurs, said Israel’s assault on Gaza pointed to a “genocide in the making.”
In a statement calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza earlier this month, seven UN special rapporteurs warned that the Palestinian people were at “grave risk of genocide.”
“What Hamas wants, make no mistake about it, is genocide. They want to wipe Israel off the map. They’ve said so publicly on more than one occasion — in fact, just recently,” Kirby said during a media briefing.
“And they’ve said that they’re not going to stop, what happened on the 7th of October is going to happen again and again and again,” he added.
Kirby noted that although civilian casualties in Gaza are “too high”, Israel is not trying to annihilate Palestinians.
“Israel is not trying to wipe Gaza off the map. Israel is trying to defend itself against a genocidal terrorist threat. So, when we’re going to start – if we’re going to start using that word, fine, let’s use it appropriately.”
John Kirby
Experts in international law have offered differing perspectives on whether Israel’s actions meet the threshold for genocide under the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which requires “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”.
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