Mediation underway as fighting rages

CAIRO/RAFAH/JERUSALEM — Mediation efforts were underway to achieve a cease-fire in the Gaza conflict, as Israeli forces pounded Rafah from the air and ground overnight and tanks tried to advance further west.

Egypt has received a positive response from Hamas indicating it looks forward to reaching a ceasefire, Egypt's Al-Qahera News TV reported on Thursday, citing a high-ranking security source.

"Hamas leaders informed us it has been studying seriously and positively a truce proposal," the source said, without specifying if the proposal was by the United States or Israel.

The source said Egypt has invited Hamas leaders to visit Cairo to discuss all details of the ongoing conditions, and Hamas will present its response to the truce proposal in the coming few days.

Last week, US President Joe Biden outlined what he called a three-phase Israeli plan to halt the fighting for six weeks, while hostages are exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and the delivery of aid into Gaza is stepped up.

Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan on Thursday called the proposal "just words said by Biden in a speech".

"So far, the Americans have not presented anything documented or written that commits them to what Biden said in his speech," Hamdan said.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Wednesday that any negotiations with Hamas would be conducted "only under fire".

As mediation efforts continued, fighting still has not shown any sign of easing.

Gaza residents said tanks that have taken control along the border with Egypt made several raids toward the west and the center of the southern city, wounding several surprised residents who had been trapped inside their homes.

The Palestinian mayor of central Gaza's Nuseirat refugee camp, Iyad al-Mughari, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Thursday, Palestinian medical and security sources said.

'Civilians paying price'

A Gaza hospital said at least 37 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a United Nations-run school on Thursday.

UN chief Antonio Guterres called the strike "just another horrific example of the price that civilians are paying".

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called for the strike to be "independently investigated".

Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 36,654 people in Gaza in response to Hamas' surprise Oct 7 attack, which killed about 1,200 people.

Israel has faced growing diplomatic isolation, with international court cases accusing it of war crimes and several European countries recognizing a Palestinian state.

Spain, which sparked Israeli fury last week by formally recognizing Palestinian statehood, said on Thursday it would join South Africa's case at the International Court of Justice in accusing Israel of "genocide" against Palestinians in Gaza.

Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said the "sole goal is to put an end to the war and to advance" a two-state solution to the conflict.

The head of the International Labour Organization on Thursday criticized the decimation of Palestinian workers' labor rights since the start of the conflict and called for an end to new restrictions blocking them from working in Israel.

Unemployment in the Gaza Strip has reached nearly 80 percent since the conflict, the agency said on Friday, bringing the average unemployment rate across Palestinian territories to more than 50 percent.

Agencies - Xinhua