Cincunri Sakia: Middle East crisis live: Hamas sends delegation to Cairo for Gaza ceasefire talks

Hamas said on Friday it was sending a delegation to Cairo to discuss a deal for a truce and the release of hostages in Gaza, hours after US CIA director William Burns arrived in the Egyptian capital, Reuters reports.

Hamas and CIA officials will meet Egyptian mediators on Saturday, an Egyptian security source said, though it was unclear whether they would meet separately or together.

Hamas said its delegates were travelling to Cairo in a “positive spirit” after studying the latest proposal for a truce agreement.

“We are determined to secure an agreement in a way that fulfils Palestinians’ demands,” the Palestinian militant group said in a statement.

A US official said they believed there had been some progress in talks but was still waiting to hear more.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken said Hamas was the only hold up to a Gaza ceasefire as the militants prepared to send a delegation back to Cairo on Saturday for talks.

“We wait to see whether, in effect, they can take yes for an answer on the ceasefire and release of hostages,” Blinken said late Friday.

“The reality in this moment is the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas.”

Ceasefire talks have continued for months without a decisive breakthrough. Israel has said it is determined to eliminate Hamas, while Hamas says it wants a permanent ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

Egypt made a renewed push to revive negotiations late last month. Cairo is alarmed by the prospect of an Israeli ground operation against Hamas in Rafah in southern Gaza, where more than one million people have taken shelter near the border with Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

Egyptian sources say both sides have made some concessions recently, leading to progress in the talks, though Israel has continued to say an operation in Rafah is imminent.

Prof Ghassan Abu Sitta, the British-Palestinian rector of the University of Glasgow and a reconstructive surgeon, has said he has been denied entry to France, where he was due to make a speech at the Senate.

“I am at Charles De Gaulle airport. They are preventing me from entering France. I am supposed to speak at the French Senate today. They say the Germans put a 1 year ban on my entry to Europe,” Abu Sitta wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

“Fortress Europe silencing the witnesses to the genocide while Israel kills them in prison,” he added.

In April, Abu Sittah was prohibited from entering Germany, where he was due to talk of his experiences in Gazan hospitals.

The surgeon spent 43 days in Gaza to help treat injured people last year, and in October alleged that counter-terror police “harassed” his family at his home in London. He told BBC Newsnight that officers questioned his wife about why he had travelled to Gaza, who paid for his ticket and which charity he was helping.

As summer approaches, Palestinians face the further risk of extreme temperatures exacerbated by climate change, relief organisations have warned.

The heat will bring with it disease-spreading mice and rats, said Louise Wateridge, an UNRWA communications officer in Rafah told Bloomberg, while diarrhoea and Hepatitis A are also concerns.

“There’s nowhere to safely get rid of trash,” Wateridge told the outlet. “You’ve got people living under these sheets of plastic in this very unstable environment. It’s not going to improve at all.”

The warning come after Rafah recorded temperatures of 39.1C (102F) on 14 April – 14C higher than the 30-year average for that date. Although temperatures cooled in following days, fears remain that summer may bring far higher heat risks and people in Rafah have no way to cool down in plastic tents.

The heatwave had devastating consequences:

At least two children died from heat-related causes, Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner General of the Palestinian relief agency UNRWA, said on X, formerly Twitter.
An 18-year-old Palestinian woman, Lara Sayegh, also died in the heatwave.

Piles of garbage and sewage in front of IDP tents in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip.

Reuters has the latest figures on Palestinian casualties since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began:

At least 34,654 Palestinians have been killed, and 77,908 injured, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said in a statement.

The ministry added that 32 people were killed and 41 injured in the latest 24-hour reporting period.

Israeli warplanes have attacked targets in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, after a rocket was launched towards the Ein Hashlosha kibbutz in Israel on Friday, the IDF has said.

The Israeli army said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter, that the rocket fell in an area near the border fence between Israel and southern Gaza.

Fighter jets also struck mortar shell positions in central and southern Gaza that were aimed at Israel and Israeli forces, the statement said.

The Israeli navy conducted strikes along Gaza’s coast over the past day, supporting the IDF’s ground forces in central Gaza, the military added.

A small number of US universities have reached deals with pro-Palestinian student protesters following weeks of demonstrations.

With more than 2,400 people on 46 campuses nationwide since mid-April, AP reports that schools including Brown, Northwestern and Rutgers stand out for taking a different approach.

Agreements from such schools included commitments to review their investments in Israel or hear calls to stop doing business with the country. Many protester demands have focussed on links to the Israeli military.

But while universities have made concessions around amnesty for protesters and funding for Middle Eastern studies, they have not promised to change their investments.

Ralph Young, a history professor who studies American dissent at Temple University in Philadelphia, said concessions and negotiations may be being used tactically.
“I think for some universities, it might be just a delaying tactic to diffuse the protests,” said Young. “The end of the semester is happening now. And maybe by the time the next semester begins, there is a ceasefire in Gaza.”

Some university boards may never even vote on divesting from Israel, which can be a complicated process, Young said. And some state universities have said they don’t have the authority to do so.

But Young said holding talks with protesters is a better tactic than arrests, which can stir up further protests. Talking “at least gives the protesters the feeling that they’re getting somewhere,” he said. “Whether they are getting somewhere or not is another question.”

Chef Fadi Kattan is working to keep Palestinian heritage alive through food in increasingly difficult circumstances as farmlands come under attack.

The chef, who has restaurants in Bethlehem and London, tells the Guardian’s Ruth Michaelson and Quique Kierszenbaum how seven months of war have devastated the Bethlehem’s economy: “Restaurants in the centre of the city are either shut down or are now opening at most two days a week. This is partly about tourism, but also people can’t afford it. Who in Bethlehem can afford grilled meat and mezes in a restaurant? Not many.”

Showcasing Palestinian cuisine at Kattan’s restaurant Akub in west London, and his forthcoming book, are about maintaining a connection with land increasingly under threat.

“There is systematic destruction of heritage happening in Gaza … I really feel we are disappearing,” he said. Across the West Bank, he added, “the lands are disappearing and the farmlands are being attacked.”

Israel has briefed the US on its plan to evacuate Palestinian civilians during a planned offensive on the southern city of Rafah, US officials familiar with the matter have said.

The officials, who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity, said the Israeli plan did not change the US administration’s view that proceeding with a ground operation in the city where 1.2 million civilians are sheltering would risk too many lives. The World Health Organization has warned has warned that the assault could lead to a “bloodbath”.

But Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will press ahead with the operation in Rafah despite warnings from president Joe Biden and others on the humanitarian consequences.

The Biden administration has said there could be consequences for Israel if it goes ahead with the operation without a credible plan to shield Palestinian civilians.

“Absent such a plan, we can’t support a major military operation going into Rafah because the damage it would do is beyond what’s acceptable,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said late Friday at the Sedona Forum, an event in Arizona hosted by McCain Institute.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Friday that Israel had not shown a “comprehensive” plan for a potential Rafah operation to the White House.

An Israeli military incursion into Gaza’s southern city of Rafah could lead to a “bloodbath”, the World Health Organization warned Friday, announcing contingency plans, AFP reports.

WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned of possible dire implications for the 1.2 million people sheltering in Rafah.

“WHO is deeply concerned that a full-scale military operation in Rafah, Gaza, could lead to a bloodbath, and further weaken an already broken health system,” the director general said on X, formerly Twitter.

In a statement, the WHO announced contingency efforts, but warned “the broken health system would not be able to cope with a surge in casualties and deaths that a Rafah incursion would cause”.

According to the WHO, most of the besieged territory’s health facilities have been damaged or destroyed amid heavy Israeli bombardment.

Only 12 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals and 22 of its 88 primary health facilities are “partially functional”, the UN health agency said.

“As part of contingency efforts, WHO and partners are urgently working to restore and resuscitate health services,” the statement said.

It added that Rafah’s three currently operational hospitals would become unreachable “when hostilities intensify in their vicinity”.

A new sea route for Gaza aid is on track, USAid says

On-the-ground preparations are on track in Gaza for humanitarian workers to be ready to deliver food, treatment for starving children and other urgent assistance by early or mid-May when the American military expects to finish building a floating pier to receive the shipments, according to a US Agency for International Development (USAid) official, the Associated Press reports.

Tents for displaced people are piled up in the city of Rafah, southern Gaza Strip.

Ramping up the delivery of aid on a planned US-backed sea route will be gradual as aid groups test the distribution and security arrangements for relief workers, the USAid official said.

These were some of the agency’s first comments on the status of preparations for the Biden administration’s $320m Gaza pier project, for which USAid is helping coordinate on-the-ground security and distribution.

With the Israel-Hamas war stretching close to seven months and Israel restricting humanitarian aid, half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are at imminent risk of famine, international health officials say. Under pressure from the US and others, Israeli officials in recent weeks have begun slowly reopening some border crossings for relief shipments.

But aid coming through the sea route, once it’s operational, still will serve only a fraction – half a million people – of those who need help in Gaza. Aid organisations including USAid stress that getting more aid through border crossings is essential to staving off famine in the territory.

Hamas official accuses Netanyahu of trying to derail Gaza truce deal

A top Hamas official has accused Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday of trying to derail a proposed Gaza truce and hostage release deal with his threats to keep fighting the Palestinian militant group, AFP reports.

“Netanyahu was the obstructionist of all previous rounds of dialogue … and it is clear that he still is,” said senior Hamas official Hossam Badran.

Badran charged that Netanyahu’s insistence on attacking Rafah was calculated to “thwart any possibility of concluding an agreement” in the negotiations brokered by Egyptian, Qatari and US mediators.

Foreign mediators have waited for a Hamas response to a proposal to halt the fighting for 40 days and exchange hostages for Palestinian prisoners, which its chief Ismail Haniyeh has said the group was considering in a “positive spirit”.

A major stumbling block has been that, while Hamas has demanded a lasting ceasefire, Netanyahu has vowed to crush its remaining fighters in the far-southern city of Rafah, which is packed with displaced civilians.

Netanyahu has insisted he will send ground troops into Rafah, despite strong concerns voiced by UN agencies and ally Washington for the safety of the 1.2 million civilians inside the city.

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the agency was “deeply concerned that a full-scale military operation in Rafah … could lead to a bloodbath and further weaken an already broken health system.”

Israeli airstrikes killed several more people in Rafah overnight, Palestinian medics and the civil defence agency said.

A top UN official said Friday that hard-hit northern Gaza was now in “full-blown famine” after more than six months of war between Israel and Hamas and severe Israeli restrictions on food deliveries to the Palestinian territory, the Associated Press reports.

Cindy McCain, the American director of the UN World Food Program, became the most prominent international official so far to declare that trapped civilians in the most cut-off part of Gaza had gone over the brink into famine.

Two Palestinian children walk next to a sewage spill near tents for internally displaced people at a camp in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip.

“It’s horror,” McCain told NBC’s Meet the Press in an interview to air Sunday. “There is famine – full-blown famine – in the north, and it’s moving its way south.”

She said a ceasefire and a greatly increased flow of aid through land and sea routes was essential to confronting the growing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, home to 2.3 million people.

There was no immediate comment from Israel, which controls entrance into Gaza and says it is beginning to allow in more food and other humanitarian aid through land crossings.

The panel that serves as the internationally recognised monitor for food crises said earlier this year that northern Gaza was on the brink of famine and likely to experience it this month. The next update will not come before this summer.