GAZA: Palestinian Hamas said an Israeli strike on Sunday killed three police officers near the southern Gaza city of Rafah, a day after Israel and militants carried out a hostage-prisoner swap. The Gaza interior ministry initially reported that two officers were killed and a third was critically wounded in a strike while they were deployed in the Al Shouka area, east of Rafah, to secure aid. The third officer later succumbed to his wounds, the ministry said in an updated statement.
The Israeli military said in a statement that its air force struck "several armed individuals moving towards troops in the southern Gaza Strip". A fragile ceasefire that came into effect on January 19 between Israel and Palestinian group Hamas has largely brought a pause to more than 15 months of fighting in the coastal Palestinian territory. Since then, Israel has conducted at least one other air strike in Gaza. On February 2, it said one of its aircraft fired towards a "suspicious vehicle" in central Gaza. The ceasefire was more recently put to test when Hamas said it would not release Israeli hostages on Saturday, accusing Israel of violating terms of the agreement, particularly on the topic of aid entry.
Negotiations on a second phase of the truce, aimed at securing a more lasting end to the war, could begin this week in Doha, a Hamas official and another source familiar with the talks have said. On Saturday, a former Israeli negotiator said his country missed two chances last year to reach a truce and hasten hostage releases, which Netanyahu's office denied. Trump has warned of repercussions for neighbouring Egypt and Jordan unless they accept displaced Gazans under his plan. Diplomats say Egypt is leading efforts to propose an alternative focused on training a new security force and appointing local Palestinian leaders.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Israel's prime minister in Tel Aviv on Sunday for talks on the Gaza ceasefire, launching a Middle East tour a day after the latest hostage-prisoner exchange. On his first visit to the region as Washington's top diplomat, Rubio is expected to push US President Donald Trump's widely condemned proposal to take control of Gaza and relocate its more than two million residents. Rubio arrived hours after Hamas freed three Israeli hostages in Gaza in exchange for 369 Palestinian prisoners -- the sixth swap under a fragile ceasefire which the United States helped mediate along with Qatar and Egypt.
Washington, Israel's top ally and weapons supplier, has said it is open to alternative proposals from Arab governments but insists that, for now, "the only plan is Trump's". US President Donald Trump believes the 'same tired ideas' cannot be repeated in Gaza, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday, during his first visit to the Middle East in the role. "The president's also been very bold about his view of what the future for Gaza should be, not the same tired ideas of the past, but something that's bold and something that, frankly, took courage and vision... what cannot continue is the same cycle,"
The October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, according to Israeli official figures. Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,264 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Palestinian territory that the United Nations considers reliable. Hamas and Israel are implementing the first, 42-day phase of the ceasefire that began on January 19 but nearly collapsed last week. Israel had warned Hamas it must free three living hostages by the weekend or face renewed fighting. Since the truce began last month, 19 Israeli hostages have been released in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. — AFP
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