Israel\u2019s assault has forced many inhabitants from their homes, leaving much of Gaza in rubble
\nDOHA\/ JERUSALEM
\nThe main UN aid agency operating in Gaza said on Saturday that acute malnutrition was accelerating in the north of the Palestinian enclave as Israel prepared to send a delegation to Qatar for new ceasefire talks on a hostage deal with Hamas.
\nThe United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said one in three children under the age of two in northern Gaza is now acutely malnourished, putting more pressure on Israel over the looming famine.
\nOn Friday, Israel said it would send a delegation to Qatar for more talks with mediators after its enemy Hamas presented a new proposal for a ceasefire with an exchange of hostages and prisoners.
\nThe delegation will be led by the head of Israel\u2019s Mossad intelligence agency, David Barnea, a source familiar with the talks said, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeking to convene his security cabinet to discuss the proposal before the talks start. Netanyahu\u2019s office has said the latest Hamas offer was still based on \u201cunrealistic demands.\u201d
\nEfforts failed to secure a temporary ceasefire before Islam\u2019s holy month of Ramadan started a week ago, and Israel said on Friday it planned a new offensive against an alleged Hamas stronghold in Rafah, the last relatively safe city in Gaza after five months of war.
\nGerman Chancellor Olaf Scholz, starting a visit to the region, voiced concern about an assault on Rafah, saying there was a danger it would result \u201cin many terrible civilian casualties\u201d.
\nOn Friday, Netanyahu\u2019s office said he had approved an attack plan on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza\u2019s 2.3 million residents are sheltering, and that the civilian population would be evacuated. It gave no time frame and there was no sign of imminent preparations on the ground.
\nThe Hamas offer, reviewed by Reuters, foresees dozens of Israeli hostages freed in return for hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli jails during a weeks-long ceasefire that would let more aid into Gaza. Hamas also called for talks in a later stage on ending the war, but Israel has said it is only willing to negotiate a temporary truce.
\nSenior Hamas official Osama Hamdan told Al Jazeera the group\u2019s proposal is so realistic that \u201cno one can object to it\u201d and claimed mediators had reacted positively.
\nHe said it consists of two stages, with a complete \u201ccessation of aggression\u201d at the start of the second one\u2013something Israel has rejected, vowing to resume its goal of destroying Hamas once any truce expires.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Israel\u2019s assault has forced many inhabitants from their homes, leaving much of Gaza in rubble DOHA\/ JERUSALEM The main UN aid agency operating in Gaza said on Saturday that acute malnutrition was accelerating in the north of the Palestinian enclave as Israel prepared to send a delegation to Qatar for new ceasefire talks on a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":60053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[74],"class_list":["post-62154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-united-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62154"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62171,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62154\/revisions\/62171"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}