Israel pounds Hamas as mediators urge both to accept Gaza truce plan

Israel bombarded the Gaza Strip on Sunday and battled Hamas as mediators called on both sides to agree to a truce and hostage release deal outlined by U.S. President Joe Biden.

Since Biden spoke at the White House on Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted Israel will pursue the war, which nears its ninth month, until it has destroyed Hamas and freed the captives.

Israel's defense minister said on Sunday Israel would not accept Hamas continuing to rule Gaza at any stage during the process to wind down the conflict and that it was examining alternatives to the Palestinian militant group.

Hamas said it "views positively" what Biden described as an Israeli proposal.

Netanyahu, a hawkish political veteran leading a fragile right-wing coalition government, is under intense domestic pressure from two sides.

Protesters backing immediate hostage release, who rallied again Saturday in their tens of thousands in Tel Aviv, are urging him to strike a truce deal, while the prime minister's far-right allies are threatening to bring down the government if he does.

Deadly fighting rocked Gaza overnight and Sunday, with Israeli military reporting more air strikes and ground combat. Across Gaza, the military said Sunday it had struck "30 terror targets" over the past day including "weapons storage facilities" and militants.

Netanyahu said on Saturday that "Israel's conditions for ending the war have not changed: the destruction of Hamas's military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel."

Mediators the U.S., Qatar and Egypt later said they "call on both Hamas and Israel to finalize the agreement embodying the principles outlined by President Joe Biden."

Political pressure

According to Biden, Israel's three-stage offer would begin with a six-week phase that would see Israeli forces withdraw from all populated areas of the Gaza Strip and an initial hostage-prisoner exchange.

Israel and the Palestinians would then negotiate for a lasting ceasefire, with the truce to continue so long as talks are ongoing.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, leaders of the two extreme-right parties in parliament, warned they would leave the government if it endorsed the truce proposal - potentially costing Netanyahu's coalition its majority.

Ben Gvir said his party would "dissolve the government", while Smotrich said: "We demand the continuation of the war until Hamas is destroyed and all hostages return."

Smotrich said he also opposed the return of displaced Gazans to the territory's north and the "wholesale release of terrorists" in a prisoner swap.

Lapid, a centrist former prime minister, said the government "cannot ignore Biden's important speech" and vowed to back Netanyahu if his far-right coalition partners quit.

Offensive continues

Israel's retaliatory bombardments and ground offensive have killed at least 36,439 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

Heavy fighting has flared in far-southern Rafah, where Israel sent tanks and troops in early May, ignoring concerns for displaced civilians sheltering in the city.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said on Sunday that all 36 of its shelters in Rafah "are now empty", after at least a million civilians have fled the city that until last month was sheltering 1.4 million people.

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The Israeli seizure of the Rafah crossing has further slowed sporadic aid deliveries for Gaza's 2.4 million people and effectively shuttered the territory's main exit point.

Officials from the U.S., Israel and Egypt ended a meeting in Cairo on Sunday with Egypt sticking to its position that Israel must withdraw from the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing for it to operate again, according to two Egyptian security sources.

Israel seized the crossing on the Gaza side in May during its offensive in Rafah along the enclave's southern edge, angering Egypt which said it would stop cooperating with Israel on the crucial artery for aid into the strip and evacuations out of it.

Israel's defense ministry body overseeing civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, COGAT, said 764 Egyptian trucks had crossed into Gaza over the past week through Kerem Shalom.

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