CAIRO: Hamas is open to an agreement to end the war in Gaza that would see all hostages released and secure a five-year truce, an official said on Saturday ahead of talks with mediators.
A Hamas delegation was in Cairo to discuss with Egyptian mediators ways out of the 18-month war, while, on the ground, rescuers said an Israeli strike on a family home in Gaza City killed at least 10 people with more feared buried under the rubble. The Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Palestinian group "is ready for an exchange of prisoners in a single batch and a truce for five years".
The latest bid to seal a ceasefire follows an Israeli proposal which Hamas had rejected earlier this month as "partial", calling instead for a "comprehensive" agreement to halt the war ignited by the group's October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
The Israeli offer included a 45-day ceasefire in exchange for the return of 10 living hostages.
Hamas has consistently demanded that a truce deal must lead to an end to the war, a full Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and a surge in humanitarian aid into the besieged territory — where on Friday the United Nations warned food stocks were running out.
Israel, for its part, demands the return of all hostages seized in the 2023 attack and Hamas's disarmament, which the group has rejected as a "red line".
More than a month into a renewed Israeli offensive in Gaza that followed a two-month truce, a Hamas official said earlier this week that its delegation in Cairo would discuss "new ideas" on a ceasefire.
On Saturday, Hamas released a video purportedly showing how it "rescued hostages" from a tunnel after it was allegedly bombed by the Israeli military.
In Gaza City, in the territory's north, the civil defence agency said a strike on the Al Khour family home killed 10 people, with an estimated 20 more trapped in the debris.
Umm Walid al Khour, who survived the attack, said that "everyone was sleeping with their children" when the strike hit. "The house collapsed on top of us," she said.
"Those who survived cried for help but nobody came... Most of the deceased were children." Elsewhere in the city, three people were killed in Israeli shelling of a house in the Al Shati refugee camp, civil defence official Mohammed al Mughayyir said.
More strikes across the Gaza Strip killed four others. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. — AFP
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
