A child walks among rubbles of the destroyed buildings due to ongoing Israeli attacks on in Rafah, Gaza, December 21, 2023. /CFP
Despite ongoing ceasefire talks, the deadly conflict between Israel and Hamas escalated on Thursday, with heavy explosions heard and huge black plumes in Gaza visible from the Israeli side of the fence during the day.
In a briefing, a senior Israeli official told reporters that Israeli negotiators have met with Qatari mediators, expressing their "willingness to reach a new deal."
Israel insists on continuing the previous ceasefire deal, focusing on the release of 17 women and children who were supposed to be freed as part of the truce in late November, according to the official.
In the meantime, Israel proposed the release of around 40 Israeli hostages through Qatari and Egyptian mediators in exchange for a one-week ceasefire, according to Xinhua, citing an unnamed Palestinian source.
Later, Israel's state-owned Kan TV news reported that Israel is considering "improving" its offer to Hamas by extending the proposed ceasefire period to two weeks.
The spokesman of Hamas' military wing, Abu Ubaida, declared in a statement that the hostages held by the group would be released only if Israel "stops the aggression and the war."
This statement echoed an earlier announcement by Osama Hamdan, a Hamas politburo member, who asserted that "all parties" in the talks had been informed that there would be "no negotiation" for hostage release unless Israel ended its strikes in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected these statements, vowing that Israel "will not stop the war until we achieve all of its goals: completing the elimination of Hamas and releasing all of our hostages."
Palestinians line up for a free meal in Rafah, Gaza Strip, December 21, 2023. /CFP
Humanitarian crisis in Gaza
UN officials and aid agencies have sounded alarms about "a humanitarian crisis" in Gaza, including mass starvation and disease, as the ongoing conflict has displaced a vast majority of the region's 2.3 million people.
The Gaza-based Health Ministry has reported that the Palestinian death toll from the Israeli bombardments has reached 20,000.
Residents in Jabalia, near the Israeli border in the north of the Strip, have reported that the area is completely cut off, and Israeli snipers are now firing on anyone attempting to escape, according to Reuters.
"It was one of the worst nights in terms of the occupation bombings," said one Jabalia resident who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal.
On Thursday, the United Nations expressed concern over the Israeli order for the evacuation of civilians in southern Gaza.
The Israeli military on Wednesday designated a new area covering about 20 percent of central and south of Khan Younis city for immediate evacuation. Prior to the onset of the hostilities, the area was home to about 111,000 people. The area also includes 32 shelters that accommodated more than 141,000 displaced men, women, and children, the vast majority of whom were previously displaced from northern Gaza, said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
He quoted the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs as saying that access to evacuation information on Khan Younis and other key information is impaired by interruptions in telecommunications and the lack of electricity. Telecommunications are still down in most of Gaza for the eighth day in a row.
Dujarric stressed that no area in Gaza is safe.
According to a food security analysis issued on Thursday, more than half a million people are facing catastrophic hunger conditions in Gaza.
The analysis, issued by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification and including data from the World Food Program, the Food and Agricultural Organization, and many other UN agencies, as well as international nongovernmental organizations, also confirmed that the entire population of Gaza, roughly 2.2 million people, faces crisis or worse levels of acute food insecurity.
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron (L2) inspects the humanitarian aid warehouse with the governor of North Sinai and the Egyptian Red Crescent, Al-Arish, Egypt, December 21, 2023. /CFP
International efforts to Gaza's crisis
UN Security Council again delays the vote on the Gaza resolution on Thursday, marking the latest of several delays this week on the draft resolution aimed at getting more humanitarian aid access to Gaza, according to AFP.
The postponement to Friday came even as the United States, which has opposed a number of proposals during the resolution's drafting, said it was ready to support it in its current form.
On Thursday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry held talks with his visiting British counterpart David Cameron on the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.
At a joint press conference, Shoukry said the two sides have discussed joint efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza, scale up the humanitarian aid for the besieged enclave, and adopt a new United Nations Security Council resolution to these ends.
Cameron voiced Britain's support for the two-state solution. "We have been very clear with Israel that there can be no permanent occupation of Gaza, no displacement of people from Gaza, and no diminution of the size of Palestinian territories," he said.
Iranian and Qatari foreign ministers also held talks on Wednesday, exchanged views on greater efforts to ensure a political solution to the Gaza crisis.
During their talks in the Qatari capital Doha, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and his Qatari counterpart Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, also discussed bilateral relations and regional issues of common interest, said a statement released by the Iranian Foreign Ministry.
The Iranian foreign minister said Palestine's issue and Gaza's developments are the most important issues pursued jointly by the two countries over the past two months, to stop Israeli attacks against the coastal enclave in a lasting manner and ensure aid delivery to the war-torn region.
He said it is important to increase efforts at the regional and international level to find a political solution to Gaza's crisis.
The Qatari foreign minister, for his part, described as "positive and effective" the two countries' joint efforts to prepare the ground for the achievement of a lasting truce in Gaza and increase aid delivery to people in the enclave.
A view of the ship that is loaded with 10 million liters of fuel before it departs for Gaza from a port in Basra, Iraq on December 21, 2023. /CFP
Iraq on Thursday donated 10 million liters of fuel to the Gaza Strip, the official Iraqi News Agency reported.
"A ship carrying 10 million liters of gas oil has sailed through the international water toward the Suez Canal," Iraqi military spokesman Yahya Rasoul was quoted by the agency as saying.
Rasoul said the Iraqi government had coordinated with the Egyptian authorities about the shipment sent to the Palestinians stranded in Gaza.
(With input from agencies)