AFP

Hamas said it was ready to start talks “immediately” on a proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza, where the civil defence agency said Israel’s ongoing offensive killed 20 people on Saturday.

The announcement came after it held consultations with other Palestinian factions and before a visit on Monday by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington, where President Donald Trump is pushing for an end to the war, now in its 21st month.

“The movement is ready to engage immediately and seriously in a cycle of negotiations on the mechanism to put in place” the terms of a draft US-backed truce proposal received from mediators, the resistance group said in a statement.

Hamas ally Islamic Jihad said it supported ceasefire talks, but demanded “guarantees” that Israel “will not resume its aggression” once hostages held in Gaza are freed.

Trump, when asked about Hamas’s response aboard Air Force One on Friday, said: “That’s good. They haven’t briefed me on it. We have to get it over with. We have to do something about Gaza.”

The conflict in Gaza began with Hamas’s October 2023 attack, which sparked a massive Israeli offensive aimed at destroying Hamas and bringing home all the hostages seized by Palestinian fighters.

On Friday, Netanyahu again pledged to bring home the hostages, after coming under massive domestic pressure over their fate.

Two previous ceasefires mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States have seen temporary halts in fighting, coupled with the return of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

60-day truce proposal

Efforts to broker a new truce have repeatedly failed, with the primary point of contention being Israel’s rejection of Hamas’s demand for guarantees that any new ceasefire will be lasting.

A previous round of talks broke down in May with Hamas and Israel trading blame for its failure.

The Palestinian resistance group said it had given a “positive response” to a truce proposal from US special envoy Steve Witkoff, but its request for a guarantee that hostilities would not resume had been rejected by Israel.

A Palestinian source familiar with the negotiations told AFP earlier this week that the latest proposal included “a 60-day truce, during which Hamas would release half of the living Israeli captives in the Gaza Strip” — thought to number 22 — “in exchange for Israel releasing a number of Palestinian prisoners and detainees”.

Out of 251 hostages seized by Palestinian fighters during the October 2023 resistance campaign, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.

Nearly 21 months of war have created dire humanitarian conditions for the more than two million people in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has recently expanded its military operations.

Civil defence says schools hit

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said Israeli military operations killed 20 people across the war-battered territory on Saturday.

Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency.

Bassal said five of the dead were killed in a strike on a school in Gaza City.

A second strike near another school in the city where displaced civilians had found shelter killed three people and wounded around 10, including children, he said.

Many Gazans have sought shelter in schools and other public buildings since the war began with Hamas’s October 2023 resistance campaign on Israel.

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it could not comment on specific strikes without precise coordinates.

The civil defence agency said Israeli strikes and gunfire killed at least 52 people on Friday.

Israel’s military campaign has killed at least 57,268 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory