GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories, March 5, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - International mediators were with Hamas negotiators in Cairo Tuesday for talks on a truce to pause nearly five months of fighting in Gaza before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins early next week.
 
Envoys from the Palestinian militant group and the United States were expected to meet with Qatari and Egyptian mediators for a third day of negotiations on a six-week truce, the exchange of dozens of remaining hostages for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and increased aid to Gaza.

Israeli negotiators have so far stayed away from the talks, despite growing diplomatic pressure for a truce to take effect before Ramadan.
Israeli media reported that the country's negotiating team boycotted the talks after Hamas did not provide a list of living hostages.

Senior Hamas leader Bassem Naim told AFP that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to blame for obstructing the talks and said it was for the United States to stop the war before Ramadan, saying the "ball is in their court".

Israel has said it believes 130 of the 250 captives taken by Hamas in the October attack that triggered the war remain in Gaza, but that 31 have been killed.

As conditions in the besieged Palestinian territory deteriorate and the spectre of famine looms, Israel has faced increasingly sharp rebukes from its top ally the United States. 

Vice President Kamala Harris expressed "deep concern about the humanitarian conditions in Gaza" during talks in Washington on Monday with Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz.

The same day, the World Health Organization said an aid mission to two hospitals in northern Gaza had found children dying of starvation, amid dire shortages of food, fuel and medicines.

"The lack of food resulted in the deaths of 10 children," said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus after the UN agency visited the Al-Awda and Kamal Adwan hospitals over the weekend.

Fighting in Gaza continued, with authorities reporting dozens of Israeli air strikes near the European Hospital in Hamad, near Gaza's main southern city of Khan Yunis.

The Israeli army said it was conducting targeted raids in Hamad and had captured dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters who were hiding among civilians.

Its jets had struck 50 Hamas targets across the Gaza Strip in the past day, the army said.

The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said 97 people had been killed overnight, mostly women and children.

Khan Yunis residents described finding decomposing bodies lying in streets lined with destroyed homes and shops.

"We want to eat and live. Take a look at our homes. How am I to blame, a single, unarmed person without any income in this impoverished country?" asked Nader Abu Shanab, pointing to the rubble with blackened hands.

- UN tensions -

The Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7 resulted in about 1,160 deaths, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed 30,631 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry.

Tensions between Israel and the United Nations erupted on Monday, with Israel recalling its ambassador over the handling of allegations of sexual assault by Hamas militants during the October attack.

Israel accused the United Nations of taking too long to respond to the claims, as the world body published a report on Monday that said there were "reasonable grounds to believe" rapes were committed in the Hamas attack and that hostages taken to Gaza had also been raped.

"In most of these incidents, victims first subjected to rape were then killed, and at least two incidents relate to the rape of women's corpses," the report said.

Shortly before the report's release, Israel said it was recalling its ambassador Gilad Erdan over what it said was an attempt by the UN to "silence" reports of sexual violence by Hamas.

UN chief Antonio Guterres's spokesman denied trying to suppress the report.

Israel previously accused 12 of the 13,000 Gaza staff of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) of involvement in the October 7 Hamas attack that began the war.

UNRWA is at the centre of efforts to provide humanitarian relief in Gaza, where aid groups warn of looming famine.

The agency said Monday that members of its staff had reported "torture, severe ill-treatment, abuse and sexual exploitation" in Israeli custody, while the Israeli army accused it of employing more than 450 "terrorists".

Phillipe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, has said that Israel provided no evidence against his former employees.

- Lebanon strikes -

The war has sparked violence across the region, including near-daily exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and Lebanon's Hezbollah movement.

"A diplomatic solution is the only way to end the current hostilities," US envoy Amos Hochstein told reporters in Beirut on Monday, adding that "a temporary ceasefire is not enough".

"A limited war is not containable," he said after meeting with parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally.

On Monday, a foreign worker in northern Israel was killed and seven Indian workers were wounded in a missile strike near the Lebanese border, Israeli medics said.

The Israeli army said it had carried out strikes on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon in response.

Hezbollah said three paramedics affiliated with the group had been killed in an Israeli strike.