Under discussion in the cease-fire talks is a three-phase deal that would start with Hamas’s release of 33 hostages, including women, children and the elderly, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, The Washington Post reported. The deal would also include provisions for the return of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza and for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from populated areas.
Hamas described Israel’s “storming” of the Rafah border crossing overnight as a “dangerous escalation.” The group accused Israel of trying to “exacerbate the humanitarian situation in the Strip by closing” the crossing. Wael Abu Omar, a Gaza border official, said travel and the flow of aid into the Strip had “stopped completely.”
In an address marking the Holocaust Days of Remembrance, President Biden said that “there is no place on any campus in America, any place in America, for antisemitism or hate speech or threats of violence of any kind.” In his remarks, Biden avoided explicit criticism of Israel’s conduct during the war in Gaza.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned Israeli settlers’ attack on a Jordanian aid convoy headed to Gaza, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a readout of a call between Blinken and his Jordanian counterpart. The incident marked at least the second time in less than a week that Israeli protesters attacked an aid convoy.
At least 34,789 people have been killed and 78,204 injured in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children.
Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and says 267 soldiers have been killed since the launch of its military operation in Gaza.
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