US President Donald Trump pleaded for progress in ceasefire talks, calling for a deal that would halt the fighting in the 20-month-long conflict as Israel and Hamas appeared to be inching closer to an agreement.
An Israeli official stated that plans are being made for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to travel to Washington in the coming weeks. The official declined to discuss the focus of the visit and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss plans that had not yet been finalised.
Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer was already set to travel to Washington this week for talks on a ceasefire.
Hours before Trump’s calls for a ceasefire, on Saturday, at least 60 people were killed across Gaza by Israeli strikes, health workers said.
The strikes began late Friday and continued into Saturday morning, among others killing 12 people near the Palestine Stadium in Gaza City, which was sheltering displaced people, and eight more living in apartments, according to staff at Shifa Hospital, where the bodies were brought.
More than 20 bodies were taken to Nasser Hospital, according to health officials.
A strike midday Saturday killed 11 people on a street in eastern Gaza City, and their bodies were taken to Al-Ahli Hospital.
Trump: Make the deal, get the hostages back!
“Make the deal in Gaza. Get the hostages back!!!” Trump wrote on his social media platform on Sunday morning.
Earlier on Friday, Trump raised expectations for a deal, stating that a ceasefire agreement could be reached within the next week. Taking questions from reporters, he said, “We’re working on Gaza and trying to get it taken care of.”
In Israel, relatives of the remaining hostages and their supporters gathered for their weekly rally demanding a ceasefire and a deal to return the hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.
Despite an eight-week ceasefire reached just as Trump was taking office earlier this year, attempts since then to bring the sides toward a new agreement have failed.
Meanwhile, Trump has called Netanyahu’s corruption trial a “political witch hunt” claiming similarity to his own trials in the US. According to Trump, the legal proceedings should end, and the court should let Netanyahu go, so that he can negotiate a deal with Hamas to take back the hostages. Despite Trump’s popularity in the country, this was seen as a dramatic interference by an international ally in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state by many in Israel.
New evacuation orders in Gaza
Netanyahu is scheduled to hold a high-level discussion on Sunday with Defence Minister Israel Katz and IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir to evaluate the next steps in the Gaza Strip, including potential steps to embark on a wider military operation differing from previous offences, according to Israeli media.
The Israeli military on Sunday ordered new mass evacuations of Palestinians in northern Gaza. Col. Avichay Adraee, a military spokesperson, posted the order on social media, as the IDF will expand its attacks to the city’s northern section.
The evacuation area includes multiple neighbourhoods in eastern and northern Gaza City, as well as the Jabaliya refugee camp.
The military will expand its escalating attacks to the city’s northern section, calling for people to move southward to the Muwasi area in southern Gaza, Adraee said. Rights groups say this movement would amount to a forcible transfer.
Humanitarian situation is ‘unbearable,’ Austrian minister says
Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty met his Austrian counterpart, Beate Meinl-Reisinger, in Cairo on Saturday, and the two held a news briefing.
The Austrian minister said the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip was “unbearable.”
“It’s high time, especially in political and diplomatic talks, to push for a ceasefire. It’s time for peace, for the guns to fall silent, also in Gaza,” Meinl-Reisinger said.
The war has killed over 56,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. It says more than half of the dead were women and children, including 6,089 killed since the end of the latest ceasefire.