Envoys push for Gaza truce before Ramadan starts next week

GAZA STRIP: Envoys pushed on with efforts for a Gaza truce and hostage release deal in Cairo talks Wednesday, hoping to halt nearly five months of fighting with days to go before Ramadan.
US President Joe Biden had urged Hamas to accept a ceasefire plan with Israel before the Muslim fasting month begins, which could be as early as Sunday depending on the sighting of the crescent moon.
As negotiators in Egypt sought to overcome tough stumbling blocks, deadly fighting again rocked Gaza where the UN warns famine looms and desperate crowds have stopped and looted food aid trucks.
Gazans were waiting to collect bags of flour outside an office of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, in Rafah, now home to nearly 1.5 million Palestinians, most of them displaced by the war.
“The flour they provide is not enough,” said displaced man Muhammad Abu Odeh. “They do not provide us with sugar or anything else except flour.”
In Khan Yunis, dozens of people went to inspect their homes before streaming out along streets lined by bombed-out buildings carrying what belongings they could recover after Israeli forces pulled out of the city center.
Biden on Tuesday called on Hamas to accept the truce plan brokered by US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators, saying “it’s in the hands of Hamas right now.”
The proposed deal would pause fighting for “at least six weeks,” see the “release of sick, wounded, elderly and women hostages” and allow for “a surge of humanitarian assistance,” the White House said.
One known sticking point centers on an Israeli demand for Hamas to provide a list of about 100 hostages believed to still be alive — a task Hamas says it is unable to complete while bombing continues.
The Palestinian Islamist group said in a statement it had “shown the required flexibility with the aim of reaching an agreement,” insisting on a complete halt to the fighting.
In past years, violence has flared during Ramadan in annexed east Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound — Islam’s third-holiest site and Judaism’s most sacred, known to Jews as the Temple Mount.