Israel strikes Gaza after truce talks with Hamas end without deal

Israel launched fresh strikes in the Gaza Strip on Friday after negotiators pursuing a long-stalled truce agreement left talks in Cairo without having secured a deal.

Artillery salvos hit Rafah on the territory’s southern border with Egypt, while airstrikes and fighting was reported in Gaza City further north.

Israeli and Hamas negotiating teams left Cairo overnight on Thursday after what the Egyptian hosts described as a “two-day round” of indirect negotiations on the terms of a Gaza truce, according to Egyptian intelligence-linked Al-Qahera News.

Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip and whose unprecedented October 7 attacks on Israel sparked the war there, said its delegation had left for Qatar, home to the Palestinian militant group’s political leadership. It said after submitting its ceasefire plan on Monday, the “ball was now completely in the hands” of Israel.

The deal, the group said, involved a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, the return of Palestinians displaced by the war, and the exchange of hostages held by militants for Palestinian prisoners detained in Israel, with the aim of a “permanent ceasefire”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office called the proposal “far from Israel’s essential demands”, but said the government would send negotiators to Cairo. Israel has long resisted the idea of a permanent ceasefire, insisting it must finish the job of dismantling Hamas.

Mediator Egypt said the two sides must show “flexibility” in order to strike a deal for a ceasefire and hostage-prisoner exchange in the seven-month war, according to a foreign ministry statement.

CIA director William Burns, who is also part of the truce efforts, was due to return to the US from the Middle East on Friday, the White House said.

“That doesn’t mean there aren’t still ongoing discussions,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. “We still believe that there’s a path forward, but it’s going to take some leadership on both sides.”

Countries around the world, including Israeli backer the US, have urged Israel not to extend its ground offensive into Rafah, citing fears of a large civilian toll. Rafah’s population has swelled to around 1.5 million after hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled fighting in other areas of Gaza.

Israel insists, however, that in order to achieve its war aims, it must send ground troops into the city, where it claims senior Hamas military leaders are hiding.

Israel has since Tuesday conducted military operations in parts of Rafah, and seized control of a key border crossing into Egypt, sparking condemnation from aid groups that rely on the crossing to send assistance into the territory.

In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, US President Joe Biden issued his starkest warning yet to Israel since the start of the war, saying he would stop some US weapons supplies to Israel if it carried out its long-threatened ground assault. “If they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used … to deal with the cities. We’re not gonna supply the weapons and the artillery shells that have been used,” he said.

In Israel’s first reaction to Mr Biden’s threat, its UN ambassador Gilad Erdan called it a “very disappointing statement”.

Mr Netanyahu did not respond directly to the US threat. However, he said in a statement: “If we have to stand alone, we will stand alone.”

In comments delivered on the eve of Israel’s Independence Day, Mr Netanyahu reminded Israelis that in 1948, “we were few against many”.

“Today we are much stronger. We are determined and we are united in order to defeat our ­enemies and those who want to destroy us,” he said.

“We will fight with our fingernails. But we have much more than fingernails and with that same strength of spirit, with God’s help, together we will win.”

Israel’s military said on Wednesday it was reopening another aid crossing into Gaza, Kerem Shalom, as well as the Erez crossing into north Gaza.

But the head of the UN ­humanitarian office in the Palestinian territories, Andrea De ­Domenico, said military activity at Kerem Shalom made civilian aid deliveries practically impossible.

A US container ship loaded with aid for Gaza left Cyprus on Thursday in a new test of a maritime corridor to get relief into the besieged Palestinian territory, the Cyprus government said.

US military engineers have been assembling a temporary pier to unload aid deliveries but the work has been delayed by heavy seas. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the pier will “significantly increase” the volume of aid reaching Gaza but said it was not a “substitute” for greater land access via Israel.