CAIRO/DUBAI: Hamas said on Friday it was reviewing a US proposal to restore the Gaza ceasefire as Israel intensified military operations in the enclave to press the Palestinian group into freeing remaining Israeli hostages.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff's "bridge" plan, presented last week, aims to extend the ceasefire into April, beyond Ramadhan and Passover, to allow time for negotiations on a permanent cessation of hostilities.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said the military was ramping up air, land and sea strikes and would also evacuate civilians to the southern part of Gaza, speaking three days after Israel effectively abandoned the two-month-old truce.
Katz emphasised that Israel would continue its campaign until Hamas released further hostages and was totally defeated.
However, while Israel inflicted serious damage on Hamas with airstrikes this week that killed its Gaza government chief and other top officials, Palestinian and Israeli sources say Hamas has shown it can absorb major losses and still fight and govern. Hamas said it was still debating Witkoff's proposal and other ideas, with the goal of reaching a deal on prisoner releases, ending the war and securing a complete Israeli military withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
A Palestinian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Egypt had also put forward a bridging proposal, but Hamas had yet to respond. The official declined to provide details on the proposal, which he said was under consideration.
Two Egyptian security sources said Egypt suggested putting a timeline into place for releasing the rest of the hostages alongside a deadline for a full Israeli pullout from Gaza with US guarantees.
The sources said the US had signalled initial approval of the plan while Hamas and Israel's responses were expected later on Friday.
A temporary, first phase of the truce ended at the start of this month, but Israel and Hamas could not overcome differences over terms for launching the second phase. Hamas held up further hostage releases and Israeli military action then resumed.
After two months of relative calm, Gazans were again fleeing for their lives after Israel launched a new, all-out air and ground campaign against Hamas on Tuesday, after again halting all aid deliveries into the narrow coastal enclave.
Katz warned that Hamas would lose more territory the longer it kept refusing to free remaining hostages. Of the more than 250 originally seized in Hamas' October 2023 attack on Israel, 59 remain in Gaza, 24 of whom are thought to be alive.
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