Israeli attacks ramp up with Gaza ceasefire talks in limbo

Ceasefire talks on ending the war on Gaza remained stalled on Monday amid reports that the Palestinians had pulled out of the negotiations following a series of devastating Israeli airstrikes last week which killed dozens of civilians in the enclave.

Further negotiations between the two sides are expected to take place this week in Doha, sources involved in the mediation efforts told The New Arab's Arabic language sister outlet Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

The US and others were quietly optimistic about talks between Hamas and Israel until a senior Hamas official, Mohammed Deif, was targeted by Israel in a massive strike on a civilian humanitarian area in Gaza which killed scores of men, women, and children.

Hamas officials said Deif was not hurt in the attack, but the Israeli army said one of his close associates, Rafeh Salama who heads the Khan Younis division of Al-Qassam Brigades, was fatally killed by the strike which also killed some 90 civilians.

Earlier on Sunday four attacks were reported across Gaza City which killed at least 31 people, while another strike on an UN-run school sheltering displaced people in Nusierat, central Gaza killed another 14 people.

The deadly attacks last week’s prompted comments from Hamas officials that warned Israel’s massacres risked collapsing the fragile negotiations, which have been on and off for months.

The fragility of the negotiations was on display over the past day as conflicting statements emerged from Hamas officials over whether the group had abandoned the talks.

One official quoted by AFP said that Hamas had pulled out of the talks in response to the massacre on Al-Mawassi on Saturday but a leading official in the movement, Izzat al-Rishq, refuted the report, describing it as "not true and baseless".

In a post on Telegram, al-Rishq blamed Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a lack of commitment to ending the war.

"It has become clear to everyone that one of the goals of such escalations against our people by Netanyahu and his Nazi-like government is to block the way to reaching an agreement to stop the aggression against our Palestinian people in Gaza."

The talks are focussed on a six-week pause in hostilities to enable Israeli captives to be exchanged for a number of Palestinian prisoners, as well as a greater influx of aid into the territory.

Both parties have disagreed over details with Hamas pushing for an outright end to the war which clashes with Israel's aim for the "total elimination" of the Palestinian group.

Speaking on Saturday, Netanyahu framed the recent strikes as a success and attempted to claim that the they only happened because of his refusal to end the war and to continue targeting Hamas.

But in recent weeks, Israeli military officials have conceded that Netanyahu's objective was unlikely to be achieved.

David Barnea, the head of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, is expected to travel to Doha this week for ceasefire meetings, according to Hebrew media reports.

Israel's army chief of staff Herzi Halevi said on Sunday that the army was operating in the entire Strip and said its two-month Rafah operation had achieved "significant military achievements".

Meanwhile, Israeli military stepped up land, sea and air attacks across the Palestinian enclave on Monday.

One person was killed and several others wounded overnight by Israeli bombing in Kafr al-Mashrou in east Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.

The military also stepped up aerial and tank shelling in central Gaza in the Al-Bureij and Al-Maghazi refugee camps. Health officials said five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike on a house in Maghazi camp.

Agencies contributed to this report