Hamas demands withdrawal of Israeli army before new hostage deal

The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas is calling for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip before any agreement is reached on a new deal for the release of further hostages.

Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad also told dpa on Thursday that negotiations mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States had recently seen little progress.

According to Hamas sources in Beirut, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected a ceasefire as a first step.

Hamas, on the other hand, has rejected a proposal by Israel for the Hamas leadership to leave the Gaza Strip as part of a negotiated solution.

Several media outlets have recently reported on the hopes for a further deal on the release of hostages in return for Palestinian prisoners and a longer ceasefire.

On Wednesday, in an unusual protest in the Gaza Strip, dozens of Palestinian demonstrators called for the release of hostages to bring an end to the war.

Hamas had released 105 hostages during a week-long ceasefire at the end of November. In return, Israel released 240 Palestinian prisoners from prisons.

According to Israel, only just over 100 of the more than 130 hostages were still alive. Among the hostages are two children, 18 women and a 13-year-old girl.

Residents of the city of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip gathered on Thursday to protest against the war between Israel and Hamas.

Eyewitnesses told dpa that dozens of people attended a rally in the southern city, while the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported hundreds of participants.

People called on both parties to stop the fighting, Haaretz reported.

According to the report, the Palestinians called on Netanyahu and the Hamas Gaza leader Yehya al-Sinwar with chants for a ceasfire.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army is calling on more Palestinian residents of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip to flee.

People in four more neighbourhoods should go to a designated safe zone established near the Mediterranean coast, an army spokesman said on X, formerly Twitter.

The United Nations, aid agencies and Palestinians say it is impossible to create safe zones in Gaza due to widespread fierce fighting and ongoing Israeli attacks.

The Israeli army spokesman also announced four-hour tactical pauses in fighting on Thursday, Friday and Saturday in Deir al-Balah in the central part of the Gaza Strip and in Rafah on the border with Egypt.

These pauses should should make it easier to get aid supplies into Gaza, the army said.

Aid organizations warn that Gazans could face famine conditions if more emergency food assistance is not provided to them.

At the beginning of the war more than three and a half months ago, the military had called on the Palestinian civilian population in the north of the Gaza Strip to move to the south for their own safety.

However, following the expansion of the ground offensive into the south, people were once again forced to flee their places of refuge.

According to the UN Human Rights Office, thousands of people have fled to Rafah after fierce fighting in Khan Younis.

Rafah is now home to more than 1.3 million people, more than half of the coastal strip's total population of 2.2 million.

The death toll at a UN facility that was sheltering civilians in the south of the Gaza Strip rose to 12 on Thursday.

At least 75 people were injured when the building in Khan Younis was hit by two tank shells the previous day, according to Thomas White, Gaza director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

A fire then broke out in the centre, where thousands of internally displaced people had sought shelter.

The facility had been used as a UN vocational training centre for young Palestinians.

The Israeli air and subsequent ground offensive in Gaza was triggered by the worst massacre in Israel's history on October 7, carried out by Hamas fighters and other Palestinian resistance movements who broke through the border with Gaza and attacked Israeli communities. On the Israeli side, about 1,200 people were killed.

The total number of people killed in Gaza since the start of the war has risen to at least 25,700, according to the Hamas-controlled health authorities.