Hamas frees two elderly Israeli women held hostage in Gaza, Red Cross confirms

Hamas on Monday accused Israel of killing Omar Daraghmeh, 58, a senior leader of the Palestinian Islamist group from the city of Tubas in the north of the Israeli-occupied West Bank who was being held in an Israeli prison.

Hamas described Daraghmeh death as an “assassination”.

The Israel Prison Service said earlier on Monday that a Palestinian prisoner born in 1965 had died after “feeling unwell and going to the prison clinic for tests”. It did not name the prisoner, but said he was from the northern West Bank.

The death toll in Gaza was rising rapidly as Israel ramped up air strikes, flattening residential buildings in what it says was preparation for an eventual ground assault. The United States advised Israel to delay an expected ground invasion to allow time to negotiate the release of more hostages.

A third small aid convoy from Egypt entered Gaza, where the population of 2.3 million has been running out of food, water and medicine under Israel’s two-week seal. With Israel still barring entry of fuel, the UN said its distribution of aid would grind to a halt within days when it can no longer fuel its trucks. Gaza hospitals are struggling to keep generators running to power life-saving medical equipment and incubators for premature babies.

Israel is widely expected to launch a ground offensive in Gaza, raising fears of the war spreading beyond Gaza and Israel, as Iranian-backed fighters in the region are warning of possible escalation, including targeting US forces deployed in the Middle East.

Israel bombards Gaza ahead of ground offensive as US pledges ‘flow’ of aid

The US has told Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and other groups not to join the fight. Israel has frequently traded fire with Hezbollah, and Israeli warplanes have struck targets in the occupied West Bank, Syria and Lebanon in recent days.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said there had been an uptick in rocket and drone attacks by Iranian-backed militias on US troops in Iraq and Syria, and the US was “deeply concerned about the possibility for any significant escalation” in attacks in coming days.

The US advised Israeli officials that delaying a ground offensive would give Washington more time to work with regional mediators on securing the release of more hostages taken by Hamas, according to a US official.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told troops near Gaza to keep preparing for an offensive “because it will come.” He said it will be a combined offensive from air, land and sea but did not give a time frame.

China will ‘do anything’ for Mideast peace, but conflict is ‘worrying’: envoy

Tanks and troops have been massed at the Gaza border, and Israel says it has stepped up air strikes to reduce the risk to troops in the next stages. A ground excursion is likely to dramatically increase casualties in what is already the deadliest by far of five wars fought between Israel and Hamas since the militant seized power in Gaza in 2007.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed – mostly civilians. At least 222 people were captured and dragged back to Gaza, including foreigners, the military said on Monday, updating a previous figure.

More than 5,000 Palestinians, including some 2,000 minors and around 1,100 women, have been killed, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said on Monday. That includes the disputed toll from an explosion at a hospital last week. The toll has climbed rapidly in recent days, with the ministry reporting 436 additional deaths in just the past 24 hours.

Israel said it had struck 320 militant targets throughout Gaza over the past 24 hours. The military says it does not target civilians, and that Palestinian militants have fired more than 7,000 rockets at Israel since the start of the war.

The Israeli military released footage showing what it said were attacks on Hamas infrastructure, with explosions as multi-storey buildings collapsed or toppled over.

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Families plead with Israeli president for safe and immediate return of hostages held by Hamas

Families plead with Israeli president for safe and immediate return of hostages held by Hamas

Israel carried out limited ground forays into Gaza. On Sunday, Hamas said it destroyed an Israeli tank and two armoured bulldozers inside Gaza. The Israeli military said a soldier was killed and three others were wounded by an anti-tank missile during a raid inside Gaza.

The military said the raid was part of efforts to rescue hostages. Hamas hopes to trade the captives for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

On Monday the Palestinian Red Crescent said 20 aid trucks entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing with Egypt, the only way into Gaza not controlled by Israel.

The aid coming in so far is “a drop in the ocean” compared to the needs of the population, said Thomas White, the Gaza director of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). The UN has said 20 trucks amounts to 4 per cent of an average day’s imports before the war and that hundreds of trucks a day are needed.

White said the agency had only three days of fuel left for its trucks.

Hostage talks may delay Gaza ground war, but won’t stop it

An air strike hit a residential building close to the UN headquarters in Rafah on Monday, killing and wounding several people.

At least 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza have fled their homes, and nearly 580,000 of them are sheltering in UN-run schools and shelters, the UN said on Monday.

Additional reporting by Reuters