Hamas in Egypt for ceasefire talks as intense battles continue in Gaza

Israeli troops and Hamas fighters continued to exchange fierce gunfire on the streets of Gaza's second-biggest city on Wednesday as the United Nations delayed a vote on a bid to boost aid deliveries to the Palestinian enclave facing a humanitarian disaster.

Meanwhile, the leader of Hamas is visiting Egypt as international leaders and diplomats push Israel and Gaza's governing party towards another truce and hostage release deal.

The Qatar-based Hamas chief, Ismail Haniyeh, arrived in Cairo for discussions on the "aggression in the Gaza Strip and other matters," the group said in a statement. He was due to meet Egypt's intelligence chief for talks on "stopping the aggression and the war to prepare an agreement for the release of prisoners," a source close to the group told AFP.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told hostage families late on Tuesday that he had twice sent his intelligence chief to Europe in efforts to "free our hostages. It's our duty, I'm responsible for the release of all the hostages," the prime minister said. 

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Despite foreign pressure to avoid innocent deaths, Netanyahu says the war will not stop until Hamas releases the remaining 129 hostages it is holding in Gaza and Hamas is destroyed. 

Houthis block Israeli shipping lines

The conflict has spread beyond Gaza, including into the Red Sea where Yemen's Palestinian-supporting Houthi forces have essentially been blocking ships linked to Israel along one of the world's major shipping routes, threatening commercial vessels with missiles and drones, and prompting the creation of a multinational naval operation to protect trade routes.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in Bahrain that joint naval patrols would be held in the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, which encompass a major East-West global shipping route. "This is an international challenge that demands collective action," Austin said.

British maritime security firm Ambrey said on Tuesday it received information of an unsuccessful boarding attempt west of Yemen's Aden port city. Some shippers are being forced to re-route around Africa, with the blockade threatening to massively reduce Israeli imports and exports with Europe. 

The Houthis said they would carry on attacking commercial shipping in the vital trade route, possibly with a sea operation every 12 hours if Israel did not lift its blockade of Gaza. "Our position in support of Palestine and the Gaza Strip will remain until the end of the siege, the entry of food and medicine, and our support for the oppressed Palestinian people will remain continuous," Houthi official Mohammed Abdulsalam said, saying only Israeli ships or those going to Israel would be targeted.

Malaysia meanwhile said it had barred Israeli-flagged cargo ships from docking at its ports in response to Israel's actions in Gaza, which it said ignore "basic humanitarian principles."

Street fighting

In Gaza, residents of Khan Younis on Wednesday reported intensifying gun battles between Hamas fighters and Israeli forces in the center and eastern districts of the southern city. Gazan health officials said 12 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike on a house in the city. Israel has lost 132 soldiers in the fighting inside Gaza since it invaded the territory. 

The Al Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, released a video of two male Israeli hostages who identified themselves as Gadi Moses and Elad Katzir. Moses is a farmer aged about 79 who was captured from a kibbutz on October 7. Katzir, 47, was also taken from a kibbutz along with his mother, who was later released. His father was killed, according to media reports.

Israeli missiles also hit the southern Rafah area on Tuesday, where hundreds of thousands of refugees have amassed in recent weeks, killing at least 20 people and wounding dozens as they slept at home, Gazan health officials said. Residents said they had to dig in the rubble with bare hands. "This is a barbarian act," said Mohammed Zurub, whose family lost 11 people in the attack.

The Gaza health ministry said on Tuesday that 19,667 Palestinians had been killed and 52,586 wounded in the war. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA said more than 60 percent of Gaza's infrastructure had been destroyed or damaged and more than 90 percent of the 2.3 million population uprooted.

Israeli military officials told reporters in a briefing on Tuesday that heavy civilian casualties are the cost of Israel's campaign to destroy Hamas and the resistance fighters' urban warfare strategy.

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