The Hamas official announced on Sunday that the team of the organisation, which had been scheduled to attend talks about a Gaza truce in Cairo, would instead be going to Qatar for “consultations.” This decision was made in response to growing differences with Israel about the calls for an end to the seven-month-long conflict in Gaza.
Prior to now, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emphasised that complying with the call to terminate the war would mean giving in to pressure and losing the battle.
In Gaza, medical personnel and first responders documented 16 casualties from Israeli airstrikes in the southern city of Rafah on Sunday, occurring shortly after Hamas rockets killed three Israeli soldiers earlier in the day. Emergency responders informed AFP that the casualties in Rafah included seven individuals from one family and nine from another.
Medical sources confirmed that two separate airstrikes took place in different locations within the city.
Before this, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu affirmed the military’s preparedness to initiate a ground offensive on Gaza’s far-southern Rafah city, regardless of the status of ongoing ceasefire negotiations with Hamas.
Netanyahu’s declaration was made despite significant concerns raised by key ally Washington, and it was issued just hours before the scheduled arrival of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Israel for his latest Middle East crisis tour.