Blinken is set to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, according to a senior US state department official. On Tuesday, he will head to Egypt.
The US and fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar said they were closing in on a deal after two days of talks in Doha, with American and Israeli officials expressing cautious optimism. But Hamas has signaled resistance to what it says are new demands by Israel, and the long-running talks have repeatedly stalled.The evolving proposal calls for a three-phase process in which Hamas would release all hostages abducted during its October 7 attack. In exchange, Israel would withdraw its forces from Gaza and release Palestinian prisoners.
The mediators hope to end a war that has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, displaced the vast majority of the territory’s 2.3 million residents and caused a humanitarian catastrophe. Experts have warned of famine and the outbreak of diseases like polio.
Quadruplets among 6 children killedThe latest Israeli bombardment included a strike early Sunday on a home in the central town of Deir al-Balah that killed a woman and her six children, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.Mohammed Awad Khatab, the children’s grandfather, said his daughter, a schoolteacher, was with her husband and their six children when their house was struck. He said the children ranged in age from 18 months to 15 years, and included quadruplets. “The six children were placed in a single bag,” he told reporters outside the hospital. “What did they do? Did they kill any of the Jews?”A strike in the northern town of Jabaliya hit two apartments in a residential building, killing two men, a woman and her daughter, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Another two strikes in central Gaza killed nine people, according to Al-Awda Hospital. Late Saturday, a strike near the southern city of Khan Younis killed four people from the same family, including two women, according to Nasser Hospital.
