“We join together in the hope that the talks in Doha succeed,” outgoing US ambassador Jack Lew said at the rally. “We’re encouraged by the news today, but we know we can’t stop.”
The recovery of two hostages’ bodies in the past week renewed fears that time is running out. Hamas has said that after months of heavy fighting, it isn’t sure who is alive or dead.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this week a deal is “very close” and he hoped to complete it before handing over diplomacy to the incoming Trump administration. But US officials have expressed similar optimism on several occasions over the past year.
Issues in the talks have included which hostages would be released in the first part of a phased ceasefire deal, which Palestinian prisoners would be released and the extent of any Israeli troop withdrawal from population centres in Gaza.
Hamas and other groups killed some 1200 people and took about 250 hostages into Gaza in the attack that started the war. A truce in November 2023 freed more than 100 hostages, while others have been rescued or their remains have been recovered over the past year.
Israel’s military announced the deaths of four soldiers in northern Gaza on Saturday, without details. At least 400 soldiers have been killed in the war. Six others were killed this week in largely isolated northern Gaza, where Israel has been pressing an offensive against regrouping Hamas militants.
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The Israeli military says it has killed more than 17,000 militants during the war, without providing evidence.
On Saturday, an airstrike killed a five-year-old girl and two male relatives in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where an AP team saw them.
Another Israeli airstrike killed at least eight Palestinians including two children and two women in a school-turned-shelter in northern Gaza, according to the Civil Defence, first responders affiliated with the Hamas-run government. It said the strike on the Halawa school, which shelters displaced people in the Jabaliya area, also wounded 30 others, including 19 children.
Israel’s military said it struck a Hamas command centre at a former school in Jabaliya, without giving evidence.
And a strike killed four people on a street in Gaza City, said Civil Defence spokesperson Mahmoud Basal. Overall, Gaza’s Health Ministry said at least 32 bodies had arrived at hospitals in the past 24 hours.
AP
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