GAZA: The Zionist entity said Tuesday 24 soldiers were killed in the biggest single-day losses since the start of its ground war in Gaza amid growing pressure on the government to find a way to end the conflict. The heavy clashes came as a White House official was due in the region for talks aimed at securing more hostage releases, and as US media reported a new Zionist proposal for a deal that would involve a two-month pause in fighting.

On the ground, fighting raged in Khan Yunis, the biggest city in southern Gaza, which the army said it had “encircled”. Witnesses said powerful explosions rocked Khan Yunis, as well as Deir al-Balah in north Gaza and Rafah in the south. Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said its staff at Khan Yunis’ Nasser Hospital felt the “ground shaking”. The Palestinian Red Crescent said Zionist forces had hit its headquarters in Khan Yunis “resulting in injuries among internally displaced individuals who sought safety on our premises”.

The health ministry said Tuesday the Zionist army fired directly at Nasser hospital, where civilians are caught amid heavy fighting. “(Zionist) tanks are firing heavily on the upper floors of the specialized surgery building and the emergency building of Nasser hospital, dozens expected wounded,” a ministry statement said.

The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees said one of its Khan Yunis shelters for displaced people “was hit during military operations” on Monday. “At least six displaced people were killed and many more injured during intense fighting around our shelter,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini wrote Tuesday on X, formerly Twitter.

Twenty-four Zionist soldiers were killed on Monday, with the army saying 21 of them were reservists slain when rocket-propelled grenade fire hit a tank and two buildings they were trying to blow up. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said an investigation was launched into the “disaster” and that the Zionist entity “must learn the necessary lessons”. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the “deaths of 24 of our fighters, our best sons... is a heavy blow”.

An analyst said the mounting toll of soldiers killed — now 221 – since the Zionist entity launched its ground offensive in Gaza would heap pressure on the government. “Everybody is mourning the soldiers this morning and I think people will demand clear answers about the purpose and the goal of this operation in Gaza,” said Israela Oron of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

UN agencies and aid groups have sounded the alarm about the growing threat of disease and famine in Gaza, where 1.7 million people are estimated to have been uprooted. “The situation in Gaza is of course slipping every day into a much more catastrophic situation,” with “a looming threat of famine”, said Abeer Etefa, the World Food Program’s senior spokeswoman for the Middle East.

A study conducted between Nov 24 and Dec 7 found that all 2.2 million people living in the Palestinian territory were in a crisis level of acute food insecurity, or worse. Etefa said that around 70 percent of requests to deliver food to northern Gaza were rejected by Zionist authorities. The last deliveries to the north were around Jan 11 and 13, carrying 200 tons of food for 15,000 people. “That’s really very, very small numbers,” the spokeswoman said. “This is why we’re seeing people becoming more desperate,” as they have no confidence that the trucks will come again.

Abu Iyad, his belongings piled on a donkey-drawn cart, said he was moving for the seventh time, fleeing Khan Yunis for Rafah on the Egyptian border, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have sought shelter, many in makeshift tents. “I’m heading to the unknown,” he told AFP. “They told us to go to Rafah — where to go in Rafah? Is there any space left?”

The Zionist entity has carried out a relentless offensive that has killed at least 25,490 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry. US news outlet Axios reported on Monday night that the Zionist entity had proposed to Hamas, via Qatari and Egyptian mediators, a new deal to free all the hostages.

The report, citing unnamed Zionist officials, said the proposed deal would be carried out in multiple stages, and would also involve the release of an undetermined number of Palestinian prisoners. The plan was expected to take about two months to complete. The proposal does not include promises to end the war, but it would involve Zionist troops reducing their presence in major cities in Gaza and gradually allowing residents to return to the territory’s devastated north, Axios said.

News of the proposal comes as US media said the White House’s coordinator for the Middle East, Brett McGurk, was expected in Egypt and Qatar for meetings aimed at securing a new hostage exchange deal. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel, however, said Washington still believed “a two-state solution, a creation of a Palestinian state, is the only path that gets us out of this endless cycle of violence”.

Netanyahu has steadfastly rejected calls for the creation of a Palestinian state, saying the Zionist entity must maintain “security control over all the territory west of the Jordan” River, an area that includes all of the Palestinian territories. EU foreign ministers pressed the Zionist entity to change its mind at meetings in Brussels on Monday with the top diplomats from the two warring parties and key Arab states.

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell on Tuesday said that the Zionist entity cannot be allowed to unilaterally block the creation of a Palestinian state after the war in Gaza. “One thing is clear – (the Zionist entity) cannot have the veto right to the self-determination of the Palestinian people,” Borrell told a Brussels press conference with his Egyptian counterpart. “The United Nations recognizes and has recognized many times the self-determination right of the Palestinian people. Nobody can veto it.”

The Gaza war spurred fears of a wider escalation, with a surge in violence involving Iran-backed Hamas allies across the region. Lebanese movement Hezbollah said Tuesday it struck the Zionist air control base of Meron for a second time in recent weeks, in response to Zionist “assassinations” and attacks on civilians. – AFP