Concern deepened Saturday over the growing humanitarian crisis in the war-torn Gaza Strip, with aid agencies warning of unprecedented levels of desperation and looming famine.

The UN has warned of famine in the Gaza Strip.

Dozens more Gazans were killed in Israeli strikes, the Hamas-run territory's health ministry said, after Israel's spy chief joined talks with mediators in Paris seeking to unblock negotiations on a truce.

As civilians in the besieged territory struggled to get food and supplies, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees warned Gazans were "in extreme peril while the world watches".

In northern Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp, bedraggled children held plastic containers and battered cooking pots for what little food was available.

Food is running out, with aid agencies unable to get into the area because of the bombing, while the trucks that do try to get through face frenzied looting.

Residents have taken to eating scavenged scraps of rotten corn, animal fodder unfit for human consumption and even leaves.

The World Food Programme said this week its teams reported "unprecedented levels of desperation" while the United Nations warned that 2.2 million people were on the brink of famine.

The health ministry said on Saturday that a two-month-old baby identified as Mahmud Fatuh had died of "malnutrition" in Gaza City.

Save the Children said the risk of famine would continue to "increase as long as the government of Israel continues to impede the entry of aid into Gaza".

Israel has defended its track record on allowing aid into Gaza, saying that 13,000 trucks carrying relief supplies had entered the territory since the start of the war.

With tempers rising dozens of people in the Jabalia camp on Friday held an impromptu protest.

"We didn't die from air strikes but we are dying from hunger," read a sign held by one child.

-  'Bring them back' -

An Israeli delegation led by Mossad intelligence agency chief David Barnea travelled to Paris for a fresh push towards a deal over a ceasefire.

The talks were continuing as planned on Saturday, a Western official told AFP speaking on condition of anonymity. The official declined to comment on the content of the discussions.

As with a previous week-long truce in November that saw more than 100 hostages freed, Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been spearheading efforts to secure a deal.

White House envoy Brett McGurk held talks this week with Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant in Tel Aviv, after speaking to other mediators in Cairo who had met Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh.

The war began after Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.

Hamas militants also took hostages, 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 30 presumed dead, according to Israel.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 29,606 people, mostly women and children, according to the latest tally released on Saturday by Gaza's health ministry.

Pressure has mounted on Netanyahu's government to negotiate a ceasefire and secure the release of the hostages.

A group representing their families planned a new rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening to demand swifter action.

"We keep telling you: bring them back to us! And no matter how," said Avivit Yablonka, 45, whose sister Hanan was captured on October 7.

- Death toll rises -

Hamas said Saturday that Israeli forces launched more than 70 strikes on civilian homes in Gazan cities including Deir al-Balah, Khan Yunis and Rafah over the previous 24 hours.

The health ministry said at least 92 people were killed.

At Najjar hospital in Rafah, AFP saw bodies carried from ambulances and placed in the courtyard of the hospital in body bags, while relatives grieved.

Inside the hospital, medics treated several wounded men who were laid out on the floor.

Israel's military said it was "intensifying the operations" in western Khan Yunis using tanks, close-range fire and aircraft.

"The soldiers raided the residence of a senior military intelligence operative" in the area and destroyed a tunnel shaft, a military statement said.

With war still raging after more than four months, Netanyahu unveiled a plan for post-war Gaza this week which sees civil affairs being run by Palestinian officials without links to Hamas.

It also says Israel will move ahead with a plan, already underway, to establish a security buffer zone inside Gaza along the territory's border.

A senior Hamas official said Netanyahu was "presenting ideas which he knows fully well will never succeed", while the proposal was also rejected by the Palestinian Authority in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Israel's key ally the United States said it did not support a "reoccupation" or a "reduction of the size of Gaza", and said "Palestinian people should have a voice and a vote... through a revitalised Palestinian Authority".

Southern Gaza hit as Israeli spy chief reportedly heads to new talks

Israeli air strikes targeted homes in the southern Gaza Strip, witnesses said on Friday, adding to what aid groups describe as an increasingly hopeless humanitarian situation despite efforts towards new truce talks.

Israeli media reported a delegation led by David Barnea, head of the Mossad intelligence agency, was heading to Paris for new truce discussions in the war with Hamas militants.

His trip follows what the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said was the death of more than 100 people over the previous day.

Israeli bombardment obliterated one house and left a gaping hole in the earth east of Rafah, on the border with Egypt, where about 1.4 million Gazans have converged in a futile search to escape the fighting.

"We were sleeping in our house when we heard the sound of a missile," said Abdul Hamid Abu el-Enein. "We rushed to the site and found people martyred and injured" in the strike which "completely erased" the two-storey home.

Witnesses reported several other houses targeted during the night, and an AFP reporter described heavy air strikes in the city of Khan Yunis several kilometres (miles) to the north, as well as in Rafah itself.

Israel's military said fighting, including with drone strikes and sniper fire, continued in the western Khan Yunis area.

More than four months of relentless fighting and bombardment have flattened much of Gaza and pushed its population of around 2.4 million to the brink of famine as disease spreads, according to the United Nations.

The UN humanitarian agency OCHA has blamed "limitations on the entry of aid" as well as the combat and growing insecurity for severely hampering assistance.

The war started after Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack which resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.

Hamas militants also took hostages, 130 of whom remain in Gaza including 30 presumed dead, according to Israel.

- 'Appalled' -

Israel's retaliatory campaign, aiming to destroy Hamas, has killed at least 29,514 people, mostly women and children, according to the latest count by Gaza's health ministry.

The toll has seen pressure grow on the administration of US President Joe Biden to rein in its ally Israel -- which it provides with billions of dollars in military aid.

On Tuesday, Washington for a third time vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

The vote came as Israel threatens to move troops into Rafah, a plan which has sparked widespread international alarm.

The head of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) charity, Christopher Lockyear, told the Council he was "appalled by the willingness of the United States to use its powers as a permanent Council member to obstruct efforts to adopt the most evident of resolutions. One demanding an immediate and sustained ceasefire."

Washington's ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said she could not support a resolution that "put sensitive negotiations" in jeopardy.

Brett McGurk, White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, held talks this week with Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant in Tel Aviv, after meeting with other mediators in Cairo.

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh was in the Egyptian capital for truce talks earlier in the week, the group said.

The Israeli defence ministry said the discussion with McGurk covered returning hostages, "operational developments in Hamas strongholds in central and southern Gaza, and humanitarian aid efforts", as well as "the "importance of dismantling remaining Hamas battalions".

Washington's National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told journalists that so far the discussions were "going well".

Israeli media reported on Friday that Barnea would travel on Friday with Ronen Bar, chief of the Shin Bet domestic security agency, for the talks in Paris.

Barnea and his US counterpart from the CIA helped broker a week-long truce in November that saw the release of 80 Israeli hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Benny Gantz, a member of Israel's war cabinet, this week spoke of "the first signs that indicate the possibility of progress" toward a new hostage release deal.

- 'Animals have better lives' -

For Gazans struggling to survive, any deal that could lead to greater aid flows and a halt to fighting cannot come soon enough.

"Even animals have better lives than us," said Zarifa Hamad, 62, a displaced woman living in northern Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp.

Fierce gun battles occurred in the neighbouring Zeitun district, where tanks were deployed, according to witnesses.

The army said helicopters were in action to support "targeted raids" in the area.

Aid agencies say the humanitarian situation is particularly acute in Gaza's north.

"I fear we are on the edge of a monumental disaster with grave implications for regional peace, security and human rights," said Philippe Lazzarini, head of the main aid agency in Gaza, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

In a letter to the United Nations General Assembly, he said UNRWA "has reached a breaking point", as donors freeze funding, Israel exerts pressure to dismantle the agency and humanitarian needs soar.

UNRWA employs around 30,000 people working in the occupied territories, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

Several leading donors have suspended funding to UNRWA in response to Israeli allegations that some of its staff participated in the October 7 attack on Israel.

The UN fired the employees accused by Israel and has begun an internal probe of UNRWA, but Lazzarini said Israel has provided no evidence against the 12 it accuses.

In a statement on Wednesday, the head of OCHA, Martin Griffiths, joined the chiefs of almost 20 other UN and external aid groups in an appeal for "an immediate ceasefire," restoration of UNRWA funding, and other measures "so that we can provide, at the very least, the bare essentials" including drinking water and food.

Netanyahu's post-war Gaza plan counters US aim for two-state solution

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday released his first official post-war plan for Gaza, contradicting some of the primary security aspirations proposed by the United States.

Under his plan, Israel would maintain full security control over Gaza and the West Bank, including establishing an Israeli-controlled military buffer zone around the Palestinian enclave. The plan, if adopted, would cede administration of civilian life to Gazans without Hamas links, but it doesn’t propose the creation of a Palestinian state, countering Washington’s emphasis on a two-state solution. The plan also does not explicitly exclude the possibility of Jewish settlements in Gaza.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday reaffirmed Washington’s opposition to Israel’s “reoccupation” of Gaza.

Plan doesn’t go far enough in preventing another Oct. 7 massacre

Netanyahu’s plan is “encouraging news” that “signals that the end of the war is in sight,” wrote columnist ​​Ariel Kahana for Israel Hayom, a newspaper known for its pro-Netanyahu coverage. But, he argued, the plan does not touch on “the lessons that emerged from the [Oct. 7 attacks]:” chiefly, how Israel will signal to its enemies — beyond practical measures — that such atrocities can never happen again. During previous conflicts with Hamas, Netanyahu demanded disarmament before reconstruction, but eventually gave in and poured “endless supplies” into Gaza that reinvigorated Hamas. This time around, Kahana opined that the only way to make a statement was to reestablish Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip to prove that “Israel is not going anywhere.”

Palestinians aren’t convinced Israel will give them local control

Netanyahu’s plan proposes that non-Hamas civilians will eventually govern Palestine, but its leaders are not convinced. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ office told Reuters that the plan would fail along with Israel’s ambitions of altering Gaza’s demography and geography. Ahmed Majdalani, a senior member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), argued that that the security barricades around the West Bank — the PLO’s governing base — will further separate Gaza from civilian political authority and ensure that the two entities remain “isolated cantons,” Palestine’s Ma’an News reported. Netanyahu’s domestic critics are also pessimistic that the post-war plan will ensure meaningful reform. Ex-Mossad head Efraim Halevy told the Israeli military’s GLZ Radio that Netanyahu’s plan contradicts itself because Israel rejects legitimate Palestinian authority, but at the same time says the agreement cannot be negotiated without Palestinian representation. “Israel is negotiating with itself,” Halevy said.

Egypt draws ‘red line’ at resettling displaced Gazans

To create a buffer zone around the Gaza Strip, Israel would be required to invade the enclave’s southernmost city of Rafah, where most Palestinians have fled to escape Israeli bombardment in the north. A ground invasion risks displaced Gazans pouring into Egypt, which is “illegal and a red line for Egyptians,” a former Egyptian army general told Saudi Arabia’s Al Arabiya news network. While the Egyptian public sympathizes with Palestinians, it’s government does not want to be seen as supporting ethnic cleansing through permanently resettling Palestinians on its land, a pro-Palestinian academic, Liyana Kayali, wrote for The Conversation. The government also worries that Hamas could make Egypt its new base, which would threaten direct military confrontation with Israel and could pose a political threat to President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.

Israeli strikes kill 100 Palestinians in 24 hours as officials hold cease-fire talks

Gunmen march ahead of the bodies of Said Jaradat and Yasser Hanoun, both draped in the flag of the Islamic Jihad militant group, on Friday, Feb. 23, 2024. The pair were killed in an Israeli drone strike on a car in the West Bank Jenin refugee camp a day earlier. The Israeli military alleged that Hanoun was previously involved in several shooting attacks targeting Israeli settlements and army posts. 

More than 100 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip over a 24-hour period, the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory said Friday.

Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh held talks with Egyptian officials about a possible cease-fire in Gaza and an exchange of hostages held by the militants for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, according to a Hamas statement Friday morning.

During Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, militants killed about 1,200 people and took some 250 hostages. Roughly half of the hostages were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November. About 100 hostages remain in captivity, in addition to the bodies of 30 others who were killed on Oct. 7 or died in captivity.

Israel’s subsequent offensive in Gaza has killed more than 29,000 Palestinians and driven some 80% of the territory’s 2.3 million people from their homes. Most heeded Israeli orders to flee south, and around 1.5 million are packed into Rafah near the border with Egypt.

European diplomats have ramped up calls for a cease-fire as alarm grows over the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Here's the latest:

ISRAELI AIRSTRIKE THAT HIT A RESIDENTIAL BUILDING KILLS 25 PEOPLE

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — An Israeli airstrike hit a residential building in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah on Friday, killing 25 people, including 16 women and children, hospital officials said. At least 50 people were wounded.

Among those living in the building was Mahmoud Zueitar, a Palestinian comedian who is well known in Gaza for his appearances in TV advertisements.

Throughout the war, Zueitar has posted upbeat and cheerful videos on social media, joking with people about ways they endure bombardment and displacement, praising Palestinian culture and assuring those around him that things will be better one day.

Video posted online Friday showed Zueitar rushing into a Deir al-Balah hospital after the strike, carrying his young sister, who was screaming and covered in blood.

“I was always one of the strongest ones refusing to leave Gaza. I always say God, may they not force us out of Gaza, that’s how much I love it and its people,” he says in a video later, crying as he cradles the wounded girl on his lap. “But it looks like they want us to leave Gaza.”

Israel’s offensive in Gaza has left over 29,000 Palestinians dead, caused widespread destruction, displaced an estimated 80% of Gaza’s population and fueled a humanitarian disaster. Israel declared war after Hamas militants stormed across the border.

HAMAS LEADER SAYS OBSTACLES REMAIN FOR CEASE-FIRE

BEIRUT — Hamas political official Osama Hamdan told reporters in Beirut on Friday that significant obstacles remain to reaching a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.

His comments come as the U.S. and other mediators reported signs of progress in the negotiations ahead of a summit this weekend in Paris to discuss proposals to bring at least a temporary stop to the war and secure the release of some 100 Israeli hostages held in Gaza.

The Israeli offensive launched in retaliation for the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack in which some 1,200 people in southern Israel were killed and 250 were taken hostage has killed more than 29,000 Palestinians, displaced an estimated 80% of Gaza’s population and fueled a humanitarian crisis.

Hamdan said the Palestinian militant group has “dealt positively with the proposals and initiatives of the mediators” but that Israel’s position “poses many obstacles to reaching an agreement.” He said the Israelis had refused the main demands put forward by Hamas to “stop the aggression, to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, to return displaced people to the north (of Gaza), and to make a real reciprocal deal” on exchanging the Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners in Israel. Hamdan said his group is sticking to these demands.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the militant group’s demands “delusional”

BLINKEN SAYS THE US OPPOSES SETTLEMENT EXPANSION

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the United States believes that all new Israeli settlement activity in the occupied Palestinian territories is “illegitimate” under international law, reversing the Trump administration’s repudiation of what had been long-standing U.S. policy.

Speaking in the Argentine capital, Blinken said the U.S. was “disappointed” to learn of an Israeli announcement on Friday that it would build more than 3,300 new homes in settlements in the West Bank in response to a fatal Palestinian shooting attack.

Blinken condemned the attack but said the U.S. is opposed to settlement expansion. He reversed what had been known as the “Pompeo Doctrine” under which former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had repudiated a Carter administration-era legal finding that settlements were not consistent with international law.

“It’s been long-standing U.S. policy under Republican and Democratic administrations alike that new settlements are counter-productive to reaching an enduring peace,” Blinken told reporters at a joint news conference with Argentine Foreign Minister Diana Mondino.

Blinken’s predecessor, Pompeo, reversed the 1978 determination that was penned by the State Department’s then-legal adviser Herbert Hansell. The Hansell Memorandum did not say that settlements were “illegal” but rather “illegitimate.” That formed the basis of decades of U.S. policy.

2 DEAD IN ISRAELI DRONE STRIKE ON A CAR IN THE OCCUPIED WEST BANK

JERUSALEM — A Palestinian man wounded in an Israeli drone strike on a car in the occupied West Bank died of his injuries, bringing the number of people killed in the attack to two.

The two men, their bodies wrapped in the flags of the militant group Islamic Jihad, were buried Friday in the Jenin refugee camp.

The Israeli military said one of those killed, identified as Yasser Hanoun, was about to carry out a shooting attack when the strike hit his car late Thursday. It alleged that Hanoun was previously involved in several shooting attacks targeting Israeli settlements and army posts.

Violence has escalated in the West Bank since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, triggered by a deadly Hamas attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7. Since then, about 400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank, most as part of near-daily arrest raids by troops searching for suspected militants.

NORWAY'S FOREIGN MINISTER CALLS FOR A STOP TO INJUSTICES AGAINST PALESTINIANS

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said Friday that Israel’s occupation and the Israeli settlements “are the biggest obstacles to a two-state solution, which is the only solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine.”

In a comment to Norway’s submission to the International Court of Justice, Barth Eide said "the injustice to which the Palestinians are subjected must stop.”

He added that “while the eyes of the world are focused on the horrific war in Gaza, the situation in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is also very serious.”

MORE THAN 100 PALESTINIANS WERE KILLED IN 24 HOURS, THE HEALTH MINISTRY IN GAZA SAYS

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza — Israeli airstrikes in central and southern Gaza killed at least 68 Palestinians, health officials and an Associated Press journalist said, and another 24 bodies were trapped under rubble.

In all, 104 Palestinians were killed over the past 24 hours, the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Friday. The overall death toll since the Oct. 7 start of the war rose to 29,514. Though the count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, the ministry has said women and children account for about two-thirds of those killed.

The strikes were reported in the southern city of Rafah, the central town of Deir al-Balah and the refugee camp of Nuseirat.

In Deir al-Balah, bodies draped in white or black burial shrouds were laid out in the courtyard of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital, as relatives wept nearby. The bodies were later collected by relatives and taken for burial after brief prayers.

Outside the hospital, a man held the body of an infant killed in one of the strikes.

ISRAEL AIMS TO BUILD 3,300 NEW HOUSES IN SETTLEMENTS IN THE OCCUPIED WEST BANK

JERUSALEM — Israel plans to approve the construction of more than 3,300 new homes in settlements in the occupied West Bank, a senior Cabinet minister from the far-right wing of the government announced.

Approval of new construction is bound to elicit condemnation from the United States at a time when the relationship between the allies is fraught because of disagreements over the course of Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a statement late Thursday that the new construction is meant as a response to a fatal Palestinian shooting attack near Jerusalem earlier in the day. He said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant participated in the discussion leading to the decision.

The homes are to be built in the settlements of Maale Adumim, Efrat and Kedar, Smotrich said.

Consecutive Israeli governments have expanded settlements in east Jerusalem and the West Bank — war-won territories the Palestinians seek for a future state. Construction has accelerated under Netanyahu’s current right-wing government, which includes settlers such as Smotrich in key positions.

2 HEZBOLLAH MEMBERS ARE KILLED IN AN ISRAELI STRIKE ON A SOUTHERN BORDER VILLAGE IN LEBANON

BEIRUT — The paramedics arm of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group says two of its members were killed in an Israeli strike on a southern border village early Friday.

The Islamic Health Society identified the two as Hussein Khalil and Mohammed Ismail, saying they were killed when the group’s office in the village of Blida was directly hit, a day after an Israeli airstrike on the southern Lebanese village of Kfar Rumman killed two members of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, including a local official who was identified as Hassan Saleh.

Hezbollah later said it retaliated the attack on Blida by launching two explosive drones at an Israeli army post in the northern town of Kiryat Shmona, claiming it scored direct hits.

Since the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7, the Lebanon-Israel border has been witnessing daily exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israeli troops. Since then, nearly 200 Hezbollah fighters and at least 40 civilians have been killed.

NETANYAHU PUBLISHES DETAILS OF HIS PLAN FOR POSTWAR GAZA

JERUSALEM — Israel will control security in a demilitarized Gaza Strip and play a role in civilian affairs after its war on Hamas ends, according to a plan Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu submitted to his Cabinet for approval.

While lacking specifics, the plan marks the first time he has presented a formal postwar vision. Netanyahu’s insistence on an open-ended Israeli role in running Gaza runs counter to key U.S. proposals for a revitalized Palestinian autonomous government eventually governing both Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank as a precursor to statehood.

The plan, published by the prime minister’s office, was presented to Cabinet ministers late Thursday. It reiterates that Israel is determined to crush Hamas, the militant group that overran the Gaza Strip in 2007. Polls have indicated that a majority of Palestinians don’t support Hamas, but that the group has deep roots in Palestinian society. Critics say Israel’s goal of eliminating Hamas is unattainable.

It calls for freedom of action for Israel’s military across Gaza after the war to thwart any security threat and says Israel would establish a buffer zone inside Gaza — likely to provoke U.S. objections.

The plan also envisions Gaza being governed by local officials who it says would “not be identified with countries or entities that support terrorism and will not receive payment from them.”

It’s not clear if any Palestinians would agree to fill such subcontractor roles. Over the past decades, Israel has repeatedly tried and failed to set up hand-picked local Palestinian governing bodies.

Israel signals progress in Gaza truce talks, Palestinians see little movement.

Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a house, in Rafah

Israeli leaders planned to convene on Saturday to hear of possible progress in mediated negotiations on a new Gaza truce to recover hostages held by Hamas, but Palestinians saw little change in polarised positions almost five months into the war.

Israeli delegates met on Friday in Paris with Qatari, Egyptian and U.S. mediators who helped put together the lone ceasefire so far, in November, under which scores of Hamas' captives went free in return for a Palestinian prisoner release.

Israeli National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said the delegates, who flew back early on Saturday, would brief the war cabinet in an evening meeting after the Jewish Sabbath ends.

Scheduling the briefing "shows that they feel they did not come back empty-handed," he told Israel's Channel 12 TV. "From the tone of what I have been hearing in recent hours, it will be possible to make progress."

Hanegbi did not give further details, but appeared to nod when asked if progress could be made in time for the Muslim fast month of Ramadan, which begins on or around March 10. In past wars, Ramadan was seen as propitious for ceasefire efforts.

There was no immediate comment from Qatari, Egyptian or U.S. officials.

The hostage crisis has riveted Israelis reeling from the surprise Oct. 7 cross-border Hamas rampage in which 1,200 people were killed and 253 taken hostage, according to Israel's tally.

On Saturday, thousands of people held a Tel Aviv vigil for the hostages, a short distance from an anti-government protest where police reported five arrests for disorderly conduct.

Hamas has previously conditioned freeing the 130 hostages it still holds on Israel freeing thousands of jailed Palestinian militants and calling off the Gaza offensive, which medical officials in the enclave say has killed around 30,000 people.

ENDGAME

Israel has publicly balked at such a large-scale prisoner release and says any halt to fighting would be temporary as it intends to dismantle Hamas, an Islamist faction sworn to its destruction, by broadening the war to holdout areas of Gaza.

A Palestinian official briefed on the talks said that the Israelis, in Paris, had been "vague" about their Gaza endgame.

"While Israel is focusing on an attempt to turn any agreement into a prisoner-swap deal, Hamas insists that any agreement must based on an a commitment by the Israeli occupation to end the war and pull its forces from the Gaza Strip," the official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

"This is the priority as far as Hamas is concerned.”

Another Palestinian official indicated that a hostage release as part of an exchange was not imminent, saying there had been "no discussion over the prisoners, neither in terms of categories or numbers".

A source briefed on the talks, and who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said the Paris talks had produced a proposed truce "outline" that could eventually lead to a truce.

Hanegbi told Channel 12 that among Israel's guiding principles for any truce deal is a stipulation that all hostages are released, beginning with the freeing of women and children and is "under no condition be interpreted as an end to the war".

The Israeli military on Saturday published an infantry major's death in combat, bringing its total losses in Gaza fighting to 239. Israel says it has killed some 12,000 Hamas gunmen, effectively halving the faction's Gaza garrisons.

Hamas says those figures as overblown.

"We are in the midst of negotiations for the release of the hostages. I can't say what it will lead to. There are those who are addressing it. We are dealing with combat," Israeli military chief Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevi told troops in a briefing.