LIVE MIDDLE EAST. Hamas studies Israel’s latest proposal on arms truce and hostage release | Instagram VTM NEWS

Hamas has received and will study the latest Israeli counter-proposal regarding a possible ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the release of hostages. The militant group announced this on Saturday.

“Today the Hamas movement received the official response from the Zionist occupying forces to our proposal that was presented to the Egyptian and Qatari mediators on April 13,” a Hamas spokesperson said in a short statement. “The movement will study this proposal and then submit its response.”

On April 13, Hamas requested a permanent ceasefire, which Israel does not want to accept. A delegation from mediator Egypt arrived in Israel on Friday in an attempt to revive the stalled negotiations.

Israeli officials are said to have told those Egyptian colleagues that they are ready to negotiate with Hamas on the exchange of hostages and prisoners “one last chance”.. If negotiations still fail, the Israelis will continue their invasion of Rafah, in southern Gaza.

During a previous week-long lull in fighting in November, eighty Israeli hostages were exchanged for 240 Palestinian prisoners. Since then, global criticism of the increasing number of civilian deaths in Gaza has grown, as have calls for Hamas to release the remaining hostages.

Israel regularly carries out deadly bombings in areas of the Gaza Strip that it has designated as safe. The American news channel ‘NBC News’ established this after its own investigation.

NBC News reports that at least seven deadly airstrikes took place between January and April in areas of southern Gaza that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) had declared safe. The IDF did this, among other things, by distributing handbills in a neighborhood in the southern city of Rafah on December 18. According to relatives, fifteen family members were killed in an airstrike on January 9. NBC was on site shortly after the air raid.

About a month later, on February 12, an attack hit the Shaboura refugee camp, which was also identified as a safe zone on an IDF leaflet. An NBC News crew filmed dozens of dead bodies, including some women and children, in the aftermath of the Rafah bombing.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told a news conference last November that Al-Mawasi, a small coastal strip in Khan Younis, would not be attacked. From January, the IDF advised civilians to evacuate there eleven times. Still, several airstrikes took place, NBC says. On January 4, fourteen people, including three children, were killed when their tent was hit.

Israel released an interactive map last December that divides the Gaza Strip into zones that are safe for civilians and others where there is fighting with Hamas.

International aid organizations and residents of Gaza call the map confusing and difficult to read. Regular disruptions to the internet connection make it difficult for citizens to consult it. The Israeli government and armed forces say they are doing everything possible to limit civilian deaths.

China will host Palestinian unity talks between the Islamist group Hamas and its secular rival Fatah. Representatives of both groups and a Beijing-based diplomat confirmed this to the Reuters news agency.

Hamas is the group whose fighters attacked Israeli territory on October 7. They killed about 1,200 people and captured 253 people. Fatah is the movement of Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Since Hamas fighters ousted Fatah from Gaza in 2007 after a brief war, the two Palestinian factions have failed to resolve their political differences. The Beijing-based diplomat said the talks are aimed at helping the rival groups reconcile.

A Fatah delegation is said to have already left for China. A Hamas team will fly on Friday or Saturday, reports the British news agency Reuters.

China has recently increased its diplomatic influence in the Middle East. Last year, Beijing brokered a peace deal between regional foes Saudi Arabia and Iran.