Efforts to negotiate a ceasefire through mediators, ongoing for months, are once again faltering. On Monday, Israel and Hamas traded blame over the lack of progress.
Hamas wants a ceasefire agreement to end the war in Gaza, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the conflict will stop only once Hamas is defeated. There are also disagreements over how a deal would be implemented.
The war began with an assault on southern Israel by Hamas-led fighters who killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and captured around 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then Israeli forces have killed more than 39,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to health authorities there who do not distinguish between combatants and civilians but say more than half of the dead are women or children. Israel, which has lost around 330 soldiers in Gaza, says a third of the Palestinian fatalities are fighters.
