Gaza border [Israel], October 29: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has proposed a two-day truce in Gaza that would potentially pave the way for a long-term ceasefire, as Israel's genocide has killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in the northern areas of the Strip in less than a month.
The death toll in the war between Israel and the Hamas militia in the Gaza Strip has claimed more than 43,000 Palestinian lives, the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in the region reported on Monday.
More than 101,000 others had been injured, the ministry said. Most of the victims are civilians. While the information cannot be checked independently, Health Ministry figures are generally seen as reliable.
El-Sisi's proposal, which includes exchanging four Israeli captives held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, came as thousands of trapped civilians endure relentless Israeli attacks that have killed at least 50 people, including five journalists, since Sunday.
At a news conference in Cairo on Sunday, el-Sisi said the 48-hour lull in fighting and prisoner exchange would be followed by more talks in the next 10 days, with the hope that negotiators could hammer out a peace deal. Out of 251 captives seized by Hamas during the October 7, 2023 attack inside the Israeli territory, 97 are believed to be still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military claims are dead. More than 100 captives were released during a weeklong truce last November.
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera correspondents in Gaza on Monday said the latest Israeli attack on a group of people in the Shujayea neighbourhood of Gaza City in the north of the Strip has killed at least three people. Another Palestinian was killed in a separate Israeli attack in central Gaza's Nuseirat refugee camp, according to the Wafa news agency.
Earlier, Wafa reported that Israeli forces hit the Asma School housing displaced Palestinians in the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza, killing at least 11 people, including three journalists. In all, at least 53 people were killed by Israeli raids across Gaza on Sunday and early Monday, most of them in the north.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also expressed deep concern for the fate of Gaza's civilians. "The plight of Palestinian civilians trapped in north Gaza is unbearable," Guterres's spokesman said on Sunday.
Source: Qatar Tribune