Calls for Gaza truce grow, Hamas urges Biden plan implementation

GAZA STRIP

International pressure mounted Monday for a ceasefire in Gaza, with Britain, France and Germany issuing a joint plea for an end to fighting between Israel and Hamas with "no further delay".

The call came a day after Palestinian militant group Hamas — whose Oct. 7 attack on Israel triggered the war — urged mediators to implement a truce plan presented by U.S. President Joe Biden instead of holding more talks.

"The fighting must end now, and all hostages still detained by Hamas must be released," French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a joint statement.

"The people of Gaza need urgent and unfettered delivery and distribution of aid," it said.

"There can be no further delay."

International mediators have invited Israel and Hamas to resume talks towards a long-sought truce and hostage-release deal, after fighting in Gaza and the killings of Iran-aligned militant leaders sparked fears of a wider conflict.

Israel has accepted the invitation from the United States, Qatar and Egypt for a round of talks planned for Thursday.

Hamas said Sunday it wanted the implementation of a truce plan laid out by Biden on May 31 and later endorsed by the U.N. Security Council, "rather than going through more negotiation rounds or new proposals".

Hamas "demands that the mediators present a plan to implement what they proposed to the movement... based on Biden's vision and the U.N. Security Council resolution, and compel the (Israeli) occupation to comply", it said.

Unveiling the plan, Biden had called it a three-phase "roadmap to an enduring ceasefire and the release of all hostages", describing it was an Israeli proposal. Mediation efforts since then have failed to produce an agreement.

Hamas on Tuesday named its Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar to succeed slain political leader and truce negotiator Ismail Haniyeh, killed July 31 in Tehran in an attack blamed on Israel, which has not claimed responsibility.

Haniyeh's killing, just hours after Israel assassinated the military chief of Lebanese group Hezbollah in a strike on Beirut, spurred intense diplomacy to avert a wider war in the Middle East.

  Three-phase plan 

Pressure for a ceasefire grew after civil defense rescuers in the Hamas-run territory said an Israeli air strike on Saturday killed 93 people at a school housing displaced Palestinians.

Gaza officials told AFP on Monday that they had identified 75 bodies of Palestinians killed in the strike.

AFP could not independently verify the toll which, if confirmed, would be one of the largest from a single strike during the 10-month-old war.

Hamas in its Sunday statement cited the Israeli "massacre against the displaced at Al-Tabieen school" and "our responsibilities towards our people and their interests" as the reasons for its announcement on the ceasefire plan.

The Gaza war began with Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to official Israeli figures.

Militants also seized 251 people, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 39,897 people, according to a new toll from the territory's health ministry, mostly women and children.

The toll includes 107 deaths in the previous 48 hours, according to ministry figures.

Biden said the first phase of the proposed roadmap includes a "full and complete ceasefire" lasting six weeks, with Israeli forces withdrawing from "all populated areas of Gaza" and some hostages freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

The second phase would see the remaining living hostages released as the warring sides negotiate "a permanent end to hostilities", followed by "a major reconstruction plan for Gaza" and the return of dead hostages' remains.

  'Have to go somewhere' -

Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and other regional allies have vowed retaliation against Israel for Haniyeh's killing and that of Hezbollah's military chief Fuad Shukr.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered an aircraft carrier group to hasten its arrival in the Middle East, the Pentagon said Sunday.

Austin also ordered the USS Georgia guided missile submarine to the area, a Pentagon spokesman said.

In Khan Yunis, southern Gaza's main city already ravaged by months of bombardment and battles, AFP journalists said hundreds of Palestinians had fled northern neighbourhoods after Israel issued fresh evacuation orders.

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said that "just in the past few days, more than 75,000 people have been displaced in southwest Gaza", where Khan Yunis is located.

The entire Gaza Strip has a population of about 2.4 million people.

Families gathered their meagre belongings as crowds of people left the Al-Jalaa district, some loading mattresses, clothing and cooking utensils into pick-up trucks. Others took to the road on foot or left on donkey-drawn carts.

"We have to go somewhere, and we don't know if it will be good or bad," said Majd Ayyad, who was originally displaced from Gaza City.