Egypt proposes two-day ceasefire in Gaza war and release of four hostages

IN BRIEF

• Key mediator Egypt has proposed a two-day ceasefire in the war in Gaza, as well as the release of four hostages. READ MORE BELOW

• Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday said that Israel's attack which killed four soldiers "should neither be exaggerated nor minimised" while president Masoud Pezeshkian said his country was not seeking a war with Israel. READ MORE BELOW

• Lebanon's health ministry said Israel struck the southern city of Tyre on Monday, killing at least five people and wounding ten others. READ MORE BELOW

• United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said Sunday he was "shocked by harrowing levels of death, injury and destruction" in north Gaza. READ MORE BELOW

• Israeli soldiers arrested around 100 suspected Hamas militants during a raid in Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, the military said in a statement on Monday. Gaza health officials have denied any militant presence at the hospital.

• A truck rammed into a bus stop in Ramat Hasharon near Tel Aviv, killing one person and wounding more than 30. Israeli police said the attacker was an Arab citizen of Israel and had been "neutralized". Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group praised the attack but did not claim it.

• The Israeli army on Monday told residents in parts of Lebanon's southern city of Tyre to leave immediately, warning that it would attack Hezbollah targets there.

• Iranian media on Monday said a civilian was killed during the Israeli strikes over the weekend which targeted military sites, although authorities had not previously reported civilian deaths.

• Iraq has condemned Israel's use of its airspace to attack neighboring Iran.

IN DETAIL

"Moving the situation forward"

Egypt's president announced on Sunday his country has proposed a two-day ceasefire between Israel and Hamas during which four hostages held in Gaza would be freed. There was no immediate response from Israel or Hamas as the latest talks were expected in Qatar, another key mediator.

President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi said the proposal includes the release of some Palestinian prisoners and the delivery of humanitarian aid to besieged Gaza. It aims to "move the situation forward", he added, saying negotiations would continue to make the ceasefire permanent.

Talks in pursuit of a longer, phased ceasefire have repeatedly stalled. Hamas wants Israeli forces out of Gaza as a precondition but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said they will remain until destroying Hamas. There hasn't been a ceasefire since last November's week-long pause in fighting in the earliest weeks of the war.

Israel's Mossad chief was traveling to Doha on Sunday for talks with Qatar's prime minister and the CIA chief in the latest attempt to end the fighting and ease regional tensions that have built since Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.

During a government memorial for the Hebrew anniversary of the October 7 attack, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said "not every goal can be achieved through only military operations", adding "painful compromises will be required" to return the hostages.

At the same event, protesters disrupted Netanyahu's speech, shouting: "Shame on you". Many Israelis blame him for the security failures that led to the attack and hold him responsible for not yet bringing hostages home.

Inside Gaza, the latest Israeli strikes in the north killed at least 33 people, mostly women and children, Palestinian officials said, as an offensive in the hard-hit and isolated area entered a third week. The UN secretary-general called the plight of Palestinians there "unbearable". Israel said it targeted militants.

In his first public comments on the strikes, Netanyahu said: "We severely harmed Iran's defense capabilities and its ability to produce missiles that are aimed toward us."

Satellite images showed damage to two secretive Iranian military bases, one linked to work on nuclear weapons that Western intelligence agencies and nuclear inspectors say was discontinued in 2003. The other is linked to Iran's ballistic missile program. Iran said a civilian had been killed, with no details. It earlier said four people with the military air defense were killed.

Khamenei, Iran's 85-year-old supreme leader, said: "It is up to the authorities to determine how to convey the power and will of the Iranian people to the Israeli regime." Khamenei would make any final decision on how Iran responds.

The UN Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting Monday at Iran's request while Israeli forces launched deadly strikes on Lebanon and Gaza.

In Gaza, rescuers reported fresh strikes. The Palestinian Red Crescent said three people were killed in a drone attack on Gaza City, while the civil defence agency and an AFP correspondent reported more air strikes and shelling in other areas of the territory's north and centre.

"Miscalculation and helplessness"

The top commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards has warned Israel it would face "bitter consequences" after its attack on Iranian military sites, local media said on Monday.

Guards chief Hossein Salami, quoted by Tasnim news agency, said Israel had "failed to achieve its ominous goals" with its air raids on Saturday.

Israel struck military sites in response to Tehran's October 1 missile attack, itself retaliation for the killing of Iran-backed militant leaders and a Revolutionary Guards commander.

Salami said the Israeli attack was a sign of "miscalculation and helplessness" as Israel battles Tehran-aligned militants in Gaza and Lebanon. "Its bitter consequences will be unimaginable" for Israel, Salami warned, according to Tasnim.

Iranian media have played down the severity of the Israeli operation, signaling what analysts say is the Islamic republic's reluctance to escalate further. Iran's supreme leader Khamenei on Sunday said Israel's attack which killed four soldiers "should neither be exaggerated nor minimised". He described it as a "miscalculation" on Israel's part.

President Masoud Pezeshkian said: "We do not seek war but we will defend the rights of our nation and country." Iran "will give an appropriate response to the aggression of the Zionist regime," Pezeshkian added.

Also on Sunday, Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reiterated Iran's "right to respond", also saying Tehran had "received indications" hours before Israel's attack.

Israel strike "kills at least five"

Lebanon's health ministry said Israel struck the southern city of Tyre on Monday, killing at least five people and wounding ten others.

An "Israeli enemy strike this morning on a building" in the centre of the coastal city "led to a provisional toll of five dead and ten wounded", a health ministry statement said. It added that "work is ongoing to remove the rubble".

An AFP video journalist saw emergency personnel rush a survivor to an ambulance on a stretcher, while other rescuers worked to put out a heavily smouldering fire at the site, where a residential apartment block had collapsed like a pancake.

Tyre, an ancient coastal city which boasts a UNESCO World Heritage site, was subjected to heavy Israeli strikes last week, leaving swathes of the centre in ruins.

Israel last month escalated air strikes on Hezbollah strongholds and sent ground forces into Lebanon, following a year of cross-border exchanges of fire with the group over the Gaza war.

Guterres: Gaza plight "unbearable"

UN chief Antonio Guterres said Sunday he was "shocked by harrowing levels of death, injury and destruction" in northern Gaza, where Israeli forces are carrying out attacks they say aim to prevent Hamas regrouping.

"The plight of Palestinian civilians trapped in north Gaza is unbearable," Guterres's spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. "The Secretary-General is shocked by the harrowing levels of death, injury and destruction in the north, with civilians trapped under rubble, the sick and wounded going without life-saving health care and families lacking food and shelter."

Israel, vowing to stop Hamas militants from regrouping in the north of the Palestinian territory, launched a major air and ground assault on October 6 this year.

The UN spokesman said that according to Gaza's health ministry, hundreds of people have been killed in recent weeks and more than 60,000 others were forced to flee.

"Repeated efforts to deliver humanitarian supplies essential to survive - food, medicine and shelter - continue to be denied by the Israeli authorities, with few exceptions, putting countless lives in peril," Dujarric said.

"In the name of humanity, the Secretary-General reiterates his calls for an immediate ceasefire, the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and accountability for crimes under international law."

Later Sunday, Gaza civil defence agency's spokesman, Mahmud Bassal, slammed Israel's ongoing "siege" in the areas of Jabalia, Beit Hanun and Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, saying 100,000 people were trapped.

"For 22 days, not a drop of water or bread has entered the northern Gaza Strip," Bassal said in a statement. "The occupation forces kill anyone who tries to provide services to the residents of north Gaza."

Beit Lahia resident Bilal al-Hajri, 25, said the siege was unleashing a "famine" in the area. "We are really dying under a tight siege and famine," he told AFP. "None of us can leave our homes to even provide some food and drink... anyone who leaves is targeted."

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