Plan for one-month Gaza truce makes progress, as Israel hits Khan Younis

DOHA/GAZA/JERUSALEM - Israel and Hamas have moved closer to agreement on a 30-day ceasefire in Gaza when Israeli hostages and Palestinians held in Israeli prisons would be released, sources told Reuters, as Israel pressed ahead with its assault on southern Gaza's main city of Khan Younis.

Qatar, the United States and Egypt have been engaged in shuttle diplomacy since Dec 28, seeking to bridge differences between Israel and the Palestinian armed group on a framework for a break in hostilities, which would also allow an increase in humanitarian aid to Gaza.

But the two sides remain at odds over how to permanently end the Gaza war, and Hamas has refused to move forward until this is resolved, the sources said.

Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy said there would be no ceasefire that left Hamas in power and hostages in Gaza, following

the militant group’s attack on Oct 7

in which some 1,200 Israelis were killed.

The White House reiterated its insistence that Gaza’s future government could not include Hamas leaders, prompting the armed group to say it would not let the US or anyone else “enforce a mandate on our free people”.

White House spokesman John Kirby said the US would support a pause in combat to free hostages and let aid in, but gave no timeframe. He said he would not call the discussions “negotiations”.

Palestinian health officials said at least 25,700 Gazans had been killed in the war, including 210 in the previous 24 hours, with thousands more feared lost under the rubble of destroyed buildings.

Meanwhile, in its biggest operation in a month, the Israeli military pressed ahead with encircling Khan Younis, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are sheltering.

Israeli tanks on Jan 23 shut the road from Khan Younis towards the Mediterranean coast.

That move blocked the escape route for civilians trying to reach Rafah on Gaza’s southern edge bordering Egypt – now crammed with more than half of the enclave’s 2.3 million people.

Israeli forces killed more than 100 militants in western Khan Younis in 24 hours, military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said on the evening of Jan 23.

Israel says it has killed around 9,000 militants in total. Reuters was unable to verify the number.

On Jan 22, Israel’s military suffered its deadliest day in over three months of conflict as

24 soldiers were killed in two incidents,

bringing its death toll in Gaza since late October to 220.

Hamas said it was responsible for a rocket hit that killed 21 soldiers.

The latest deaths prompted Israeli officials to reiterate that the aims of the war against the Palestinian Hamas movement that runs Gaza were unchanged and that efforts were being made to gain the release of over 100 hostages.

“In the name of our heroes, for the sake of our lives, we will not stop fighting until absolute victory,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council: “The entire population of Gaza is enduring destruction at a scale and speed without parallel in recent history.”

“Nothing can justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people,” he said, denouncing Israel’s opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state that would exist alongside Israel.

‘Cause for optimism’

Diplomacy around a ceasefire deal appeared intense. Qatar said on Jan 23 the country had “presented ideas to both sides, we are getting a constant stream of replies from both sides, and that in its own right is a cause for optimism”.

Later, Mr Kirby said US Middle East envoy Brett McGurk was in Cairo and would travel in the region for “active” discussions on ensuring release of hostages and securing a humanitarian pause.

“The conversations are very sober and serious about trying to get another hostage deal in place,” Mr Kirby told reporters.

Each side blamed the other for the collapse of a seven-day truce in November by rejecting terms to extend the daily release of hostages held by militants in exchange for Palestinian detainees.

Women, children and foreign hostages were freed

, but mediators failed at the final hour to find a formula to release more, including Israeli soldiers and civilian men.

In southern Gaza, Israel has blockaded hospitals, which Palestinian officials say makes it impossible to rescue the wounded.

Israel says Hamas fighters operate in and around hospitals, which hospital staff and Hamas deny.

At the European Hospital, reached by Reuters in southern Khan Younis, Mr Ahed Masmah brought in five corpses, piled on a mattress on his donkey cart. “I found them face down in the street,” he said.

And at Khan Younis’ main Nasser hospital, the biggest still functioning in the Gaza Strip, bodies were being buried on the grounds because it was unsafe to go to the cemetery.

Mr Martin Griffiths, UN coordinator of emergency relief, on Jan 23 said 24 people were killed in strikes on an aid warehouse, UN centre and humanitarian zone in the Khan Younis area.

A distribution centre where families receive aid came under heavy bombardment, he said on social media platform X. REUTERS