The death toll caused by Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip has reached 20,674 since the start of the war on October 7, as revealed this Monday by the enclave’s Ministry of Health, controlled by Hamas.
The same entity, cited by the AFP agency, specifies that the number of injured already amounts to 54,536. The day before, the local Ministry of Health estimated the death toll at 20,424, estimating that more than 70% were civilians, including more than eight thousand children, and that around 7,500 dead still remained under the rubble of the white buildings of the Israeli bombings. .
However, Egypt on Saturday proposed to the Islamist group Hamas a truce of “two or three weeks” in exchange for the release of 40 Israeli hostages, as part of a plan to end the war in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian sources cited by EFE assured that a Hamas delegation traveled to Qatar, where it has its political office, to evaluate the proposal, which Egypt will also present to the Islamic Jihad delegation, led by its secretary general, Ziad Najalah, who arrived in Cairo. on Saturday to discuss the situation in the enclave.
The initiative presented by Egypt to the head of the political wing of Hamas, Ismail Haniye, It is made up of three points: The first provides for a two- to three-week truce in exchange for the release of 40 Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
The second point proposes a process of inter-Palestinian talks that will lead to the formation of a technocratic government in Gaza.
The third and final point proposes a complete cessation of the war, a comprehensive agreement on the exchange of prisoners and hostages between the two sides and Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, the sources said.
Egypt will present this plan to the Secretary General of Islamic Jihad in order to consolidate the Palestinian position regarding this initiative.
The Egyptian proposal comes as Israeli airstrikes are hitting central and southern Gaza hard, destroying buildings housing refugee families.
In the Maghazi refugee camp, rescuers pulled dozens of bodies from the rubble hours after an attack destroyed a three-story building and destroyed others nearby.
According to the Associated Press (AP) news agency, at least 106 people were killed, according to hospital records, making it one of the deadliest attacks of Israel’s air campaign.
The war has devastated much of Gaza and displaced almost all of the territory’s 2.3 million people.
The rising death toll among Israeli troops – 17 since Friday and 156 since the start of the ground offensive – could undermine public support for the war, which was sparked when Hamas-led militants invaded communities in southern Israel on the 7th. October, killing 1,200 and taking 240 hostages.
Israelis still largely support the country’s stated goals of crushing Hamas’s government and military capabilities and freeing the remaining 129 hostages, despite growing international pressure against Israel’s offensive and the growing death toll and suffering without precedents among the Palestinians.
Source: TSF
