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Israeli strikes across Gaza killed 19 people overnight, including a woman and her six children, as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken headed to the region on Sunday to try to seal a cease-fire deal after months of contentious negotiations.
The U.S. and fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar appeared to be 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 Oct. 7 attack, which triggered the deadliest war ever fought between Israelis and Palestinians. 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.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack and abducted around 250. Of those, some 110 are still believed to be inside Gaza, with Israeli authorities saying around a third are deceased. More than 100 hostages were released in November during a weeklong cease-fire.
The 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 the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. An Associated Press reporter at the hospital counted the bodies.
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 strike in central Gaza killed four people, according to the 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.
