Hezbollah launches drone attack on Mount Hermon in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights

Hamas is waiting for a response from Israel to its ceasefire proposal, two officials of the armed group said on Sunday, five days after it accepted a key part of a US plan to end the nine-month war in the Gaza Strip.

“We have left our answer to the mediators and are now waiting for the reaction of the occupation,” one of the two Hamas officials told Reuters, asking to remain anonymous.

The three-phase plan for the Palestinian enclave was presented by US President Joe Biden at the end of May and is being brokered by Qatar and Egypt. The aim is to end the war and release around 120 Israeli hostages from Hamas captivity.

Another Palestinian official briefed on the ceasefire talks said Israel was in talks with the Qataris.

“They discussed Hamas’ response with them and promised to tell them Israel’s response within a few days,” the official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters on Sunday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said negotiations will continue this week but did not provide a detailed timetable.

Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, has dropped a key demand that Israel first commit to a permanent ceasefire before it could sign a deal, saying instead it would allow negotiations during the first six-week phase to achieve that, a Hamas source told Reuters on Saturday on condition of anonymity because the talks were confidential.

A Palestinian official close to the peace efforts said the proposal, if accepted by Israel, could lead to a framework agreement and end the war.

The director of the US secret service CIA, William Burns, will travel to Qatar this week for negotiations, said a source familiar with the matter.

The conflict began nine months ago on October 7, when Hamas-led fighters attacked southern Israel from Gaza, killing 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages, according to Israeli officials. It was the worst attack in Israel’s history.

According to health officials in the Gaza Strip, more than 38,000 Palestinians were killed in Israel’s military offensive and the coastal enclave was largely reduced to rubble.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) described the situation as increasingly tragic, saying in a post on X: “Families continue to face forced displacement, massive destruction and constant fear. Basic necessities are lacking, the heat is unbearable and disease is spreading.”

PROTESTS IN ISRAEL

On Sunday, protesters took to the streets across Israel to pressure the government to reach an agreement on the release of hostages still held in the Gaza Strip.

They blocked traffic at major intersections across the country during rush hour, demonstrated in front of politicians’ homes and briefly set fire to car tires on the main Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway before the police cleared the way.

Meanwhile, fighting in Gaza continued and northern Israel was attacked with rockets by the Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Air raid sirens sounded in 24 Israeli cities, bringing residents to safety. One person was seriously injured, police said. Hezbollah said it had fired rockets at an army base.

At least 15 people were killed in separate Israeli military strikes in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, according to Palestinian health officials.

At least six people were killed and several others wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a house in the central Gaza town of Zawayda, while six others were killed in an airstrike on a house in western Gaza, health authorities said.

Tanks stepped up attacks on the central and northern areas of Rafah, on the southern border with Egypt, where health officials said they had recovered three bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in the eastern part of the city.

The Israeli military said on Sunday that its forces had killed 30 Palestinian gunmen in close combat and air strikes in Rafah in recent days.

In Shejaia, an eastern suburb of Gaza City, the military said its forces had killed several Palestinian gunmen and discovered weapons and explosives.

The armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said fighters attacked Israeli forces in several locations in the Gaza Strip with anti-tank missiles and mortar shells.