Ceasefire plan back on table

The Palestinian militant group Hamas says it supports resuming a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip through a proposal put forward by mediators which would see five more hostages released to Israel in exchange for a 50-day truce.

Khalil al-Hayyam, the most senior Hamas leader outside Gaza, said the group had approved a draft deal sent by Egyptian and Qatari mediators.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said it had also received the plan, and submitted a “counter-proposal to the mediators in full co-ordination with the United States”.

If agreed to, the new limited ceasefire agreement could coincide with the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr which begins on Sunday.

On Saturday, Netanyahu’s office said he had held consultations on the ceasefire proposal from the mediators.

It said the Israeli counter-offer had been agreed with the US, but did not provide further details.The US has not publicly commented on the issue.

It comes as Israeli forces launched a ground operation in Rafah and continued air strikes across Gaza Strip after a ceasefire which had come into force on 19 January ended earlier this month. Both sides had been unable to agree to a second phase of the deal after the first ended.

During the first phase, Hamas had released 33 hostages. The Iran-backed group is thought to still be holding 59 hostages, although not all are believed to be alive.

Hamas had previously insisted on sticking to the original deal – with negotiations to start on a second phase that envisaged the release of all the remaining hostages in return for a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces in Gaza and an end to the war. But those negotiations never started.

Israel and the US instead proposed that the first phase of the ceasefire – which expired a month ago – should be extended, with no clear guarantee that the war would end.

Israel accused Hamas of rejecting the extension and on 18 March resumed its military strikes on Gaza.

More than 900 people across the territory have been killed by Israeli air strikes since then, the Hamas-run health ministry has said.

Meanwhile, the relatives of the remaining hostages have accused Netanyahu of putting hostage lives in danger by breaking the ceasefire.

One of those hostages, Elkana Bohbot, was shown in a new video posted by Hamas in which he begs for his release.

The war was triggered when Hamas attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 back to Gaza as captives.

Israel responded with a massive military offensive, which killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says.