Truce talks continue as Israel vows to fight on in Gaza

Moroccans wave Palestinian flags during a protest in Rabat on Sunday in solidarity with Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Sunday to fight deeper into Gaza after his troops endured one of the worst days of losses of their ground war, while Palestinian resistance group Islamic Jihad joined talks in Cairo, a sign diplomacy was still alive.
The arrival of a delegation in Cairo headed by Islamic Jihad’s exiled leader Ziad al-Nakhlala followed talks attended by resistance movement Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in recent days. Islamic Jihad, while smaller than Hamas, is also holding hostages in Gaza.
The groups have so far said they will not discuss any release of hostages unless Israel ends its war in Gaza, while the Israelis say they are willing to discuss only a temporary pause in fighting.
The Cairo talks would centre on “ways to end the Israeli aggression on our people”, said an Islamic Jihad official. The delegation will reaffirm the group’s position that any exchange of hostages will have to secure the release of all Palestinians jailed in Israel, “after a ceasefire is achieved”, the official said.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad are still believed to be holding more than 100 hostages, taken on October 7.
Since then, Israel has besieged the Gaza Strip and laid much of it to waste, with more than 20,400 people killed, according to Gaza authorities, and thousands more believed dead under the rubble. The vast majority of the 2.3mn Gazans have been driven from their homes and the United Nations says conditions are catastrophic.
After a week-long truce collapsed at the start of the month, fighting has only intensified on the ground, with war spreading from the north of the Gaza Strip to the full length of the enclave.
Israel has been under intensifying pressure in recent weeks from its closest ally the United States to scale down its military campaign and reduce civilian deaths.
In the central part of the Gaza Strip, medics said six Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike on a house at the Bureij refugee camp, where the Israeli army ordered people to evacuate and head west towards Deir Al-Balah city.
The conflict has spread, as Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi forces disrupt global trade with missile and drone attacks on vessels in the Red Sea in retaliation for Israel’s assault on Gaza.
The United States shot down four drones launched from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen towards a US destroyer in the southern Red Sea on Saturday, bringing to 15 the number of such attacks on commercial shipping, US Central Command said.