Hamas, Israel entrench Gaza truce positions

Summary:

• Prospects for a Gaza ceasefire appeared slim on Sunday as Hamas reiterated its demand for an end to the war in exchange for the freeing of hostages and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu flatly ruled that out.
• Hamas negotiators left Cairo on Sunday night but reportedly said they planned to return to the Egyptian capital on Tuesday.
• CIA Director William Burns is traveling to Doha to hold an emergency meeting with Qatar’s prime minister, an official briefed on the talks said on Sunday.
• Israeli authorities raided a Jerusalem hotel room used by Al Jazeera as its office after the government decided to shut down the Qatari-owned TV station’s local operations on Sunday.
• Israel’s army announced on Sunday that it had closed Kerem Shalom, a key border crossing used to deliver humanitarian aid to southern Gaza, after an attack for which Hamas claimed responsibility.
• A top UN official on Sunday accused Israel of continuing to deny the United Nations humanitarian access in the Gaza Strip, where the UN food chief warned a “full-blown famine” has taken hold in the north of the enclave of 2.3 million people.
• The UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) says only a third of Gaza’s 36 hospitals and 30 percent of its primary healthcare centres are functioning.
• At least 34,683 Palestinians have been killed and an estimated 78,018 have been wounded in Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. Some 1,170 people were killed in the Hamas-led October 7 attacks and 250 people were taken hostage, according to Israeli figures, with 132 still missing.

• The head of the UN agency for Palestinians, also known as UNRWA, said Sunday that Israeli authorities had barred him from entering Gaza for the second time in a week.
• The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Sunday denounced a “genocide” in Gaza, urging its 57 member countries to impose sanctions on Israel in a resolution adopted at the end of its Gambia summit.
• French President Emmanuel Macron Sunday urged Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in telephone talks to reach a deal in negotiations with Palestinian militant group Hamas on a ceasefire in the Gaza war.
• Protesters began leaving a Pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Southern California early Sunday after they were surrounded by police and told they could face arrest if they didn’t go.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, Reuters, AP)