Israel presses Gaza and Lebanon assaults as Egypt touts truce plan

BEIRUT: Israeli forces launched deadly strikes on Lebanon and Gaza on Monday, pressing their offensive against fighters after Egypt’s president proposed a two-day truce in the Israel-Hamas war.

There was no comment from either Israel or Hamas on the plan unveiled Sunday by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, but Israeli media said spy chief David Barnea was in Qatar for renewed talks on a hostage release deal.

More than a year into the war unleashed when Palestinian armed group Hamas launched the deadliest attack in Israel’s history on October 7, 2023, there was no let up in the violence.

Iran, which supports Hamas but has largely avoided a direct confrontation with arch-foe Israel, warned it would “respond firmly and effectively” to Israeli strikes on military sites over the weekend.

The war has drawn in Tehran-backed allies of Palestinian movement Hamas, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, where a strike hit the southern port of Tyre on Monday.

Health ministry in Gaza says war death toll tops 43,000

The Lebanese health ministry said at least five people were killed when Israel struck the Tyre city centre. An AFP journalist saw an entire apartment block collapsed into smouldering rubble.

The ministry described the death toll as “provisional” as rescue workers were racing to pull more survivors from the pancaked building.

Hezbollah said its fighters had attacked Israeli forces along the border with rockets and artillery.

Last month, Israel escalated its air strikes on Hezbollah bastions across Lebanon and launched ground operations, following a year of low-intensity exchanges and cross-border Hezbollah attacks that the Lebanese group says were in support of Hamas.

At least 1,620 people have been killed in Lebanon since September 23, according to an AFP tally based on official figures, though the real number is likely to be higher due to gaps in the data.

Iran threats

In Gaza, where Israel’s year-long military campaign has decimated Hamas’s leadership while killing tens of thousands of people and triggering a humanitarian crisis, rescuers reported fresh strikes on Monday.

Israeli strikes kill at least 45 in Gaza, medics say, as ceasefire talks ‘resume’

The Palestinian Red Crescent said three people were killed in a drone attack on Gaza City, while the civil defence agency and an AFP correspondent reported more air strikes and shelling in other areas of the territory’s north and centre.

The Israeli military said it had hit north Gaza’s Jabalia – the focus of an ongoing sweeping assault since early October – and “eliminated dozens of terrorists in ground and aerial activity”.

As Israel pushed ahead with its military operations in Gaza and Lebanon, a top Iranian general said it would face “bitter consequences” after Saturday’s attack on military sites.

Revolutionary Guards chief Hossein Salami, quoted by Tasnim news agency, said the Israeli air raid had failed, calling it a sign of “miscalculation and helplessness”.

“Its bitter consequences will be unimaginable” for Israel, Salami warned.

The UN Security Council will meet later on Monday at Iran’s request, with Tehran urging the world to condemn Saturday’s strikes which authorities said killed four soldiers and caused some damage.

Iranian media said a civilian guard was also killed in the first direct action on Iranian soil that Israel has publicly confirmed.

Iranian officials to determine how to respond to Israel, Supreme Leader says

At home, Iranian leaders played down the severity of the strikes in response to Tehran’s October 1 missile attack on Israel, itself retaliation for the killing of leaders and a Revolutionary Guards commander.

President Masoud Pezeshkian told his cabinet Iran did not want war but would deliver “an appropriate response”.

World oil markets were reassured that a broader conflict had been averted for now.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the operation “was precise and powerful, achieving all of its objectives”.

New truce bid

After months of failed mediation efforts to stop the war, Egypt’s Sisi proposed a two-day pause in Gaza and a limited hostage and prisoner exchange, aimed at eventually securing an elusive “complete ceasefire” between Hamas and Israel.

Israel hits back at Iran with strikes on military targets, IDF says

The proposal includes exchanging four Israeli hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, and would be followed by more negotiations within 10 days, Sisi said.

He did not say whether the plan had been formally presented to either Israel or Hamas.

Out of 251 hostages seized by Palestinian fighters during the October 7 attack, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead. More than 100 were released during a one-week truce last November.

Families of hostages have called on the Israeli government to broker an agreement in the wake of the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar earlier this month.

Among the key issues preventing a breakthrough in talks has been Hamas’s insistence that Israel withdraw completely from Gaza, which Israeli officials have repeatedly rejected.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Sunday that “painful concessions” would be needed in negotiations, and that military action alone would not achieve the country’s aims.

Israel launched the offensive in Gaza after Hamas’s October 7 attack that resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures which includes hostages killed in captivity.

At least 42,924 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, have been killed in the Israeli offensive on Gaza, according to figures from the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry, which the UN considers reliable.