(Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s Center East envoy Steve Witkoff will meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday, an Israeli official stated, amid efforts to safe a hostage deal and ceasefire in Gaza.
A second Israeli official stated some progress had been made within the oblique talks between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas, mediated by Egypt, Qatar and the US, to achieve a deal in Gaza.
The mediators are making new efforts to achieve a deal to halt the combating within the enclave and free the remaining Israeli hostages held there earlier than Trump takes workplace on Jan. 20.
On Saturday, the Palestinian civil emergency service stated eight folks have been killed, together with two girls and two youngsters, in an Israeli airstrike on a former faculty sheltering displaced households in Jabalia, within the northern Gaza Strip.
The Israeli navy stated the strike had focused Hamas militants who have been working on the faculty and that it had taken measures to cut back the danger of hurt to civilians.
Israel launched its assault on Gaza after Hamas fighters stormed throughout its borders in October 2023, killing 1,200 folks and taking greater than 250 hostages, based on Israeli tallies.
Since then, greater than 46,000 folks have been killed in Gaza, based on Palestinian well being officers, with a lot of the enclave laid to waste and gripped by a humanitarian disaster, with most of its inhabitants displaced.
