GAZA/BEIRUT: Egypt has proposed an initial two-day ceasefire in Gaza to exchange four Zionist captives of Hamas for some Palestinian prisoners, Egypt’s president said on Sunday as Zionist military strikes killed 45 Palestinians across the enclave. Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi made the announcement as efforts to defuse the devastating, more than year-long war resumed in Qatar with the directors of the CIA and Mossad intelligence agency taking part.

Speaking alongside Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune during a press conference in Cairo, Sisi also said that talks should resume within 10 days of implementing the temporary ceasefire in efforts to reach a permanent one. There was no immediate comment from the Zionist entity or Hamas but a Palestinian official close to the mediation effort told Reuters: “I expect Hamas would listen to the new offers, but it remains determined that any agreement must end the war and get (Zionist) forces out of Gaza.”

The death toll from the Zionist air and ground onslaught in Gaza is approaching 43,000, mostly women and children, with the densely populated enclave in ruins. An official briefed on the talks told Reuters earlier on Sunday that negotiations in Doha will seek a short-term ceasefire and the release of some captives being held by Hamas in exchange for the Zionist entity’s release of Palestinian prisoners.

The objective, still elusive after multiple mediation attempts, is to get the Zionist entity and Hamas to agree to a halt in fighting for less than a month in the hope this would lead to a more permanent ceasefire. At least 43 of those killed in Gaza on Sunday were in the north of the enclave, where Zionist troops have returned to commit atrocities.

The United Nations said the plight of Palestinian civilians in northern Gaza was “unbearable” and the conflict was being “waged with little regard for the requirements of international humanitarian law”. “The Secretary-General (Antonio Guterres) is shocked by the harrowing levels of death, injury and destruction in the north, with civilians trapped under rubble, the sick and wounded going without life-saving health care, and families lacking food and shelter, amid reports of families being separated and many people detained,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.

Zionist authorities were hampering efforts to deliver food, medicine and other essential humanitarian supplies, putting lives at risk, he said. The devastation and deprivation resulting from Zionist military operations in the north were making life there untenable.

Earlier on Sunday, 20 people were killed following an airstrike on houses in Jabalia, the largest of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic refugee camps, which has been the focus of a Zionist military offensive for more than three weeks, medics and the Palestinian official news agency WAFA said. Another Zionist airstrike on a school sheltering displaced Palestinian families in Shati camp in Gaza City, killed nine people and wounded 20 others, with many in critical condition, medics said.

Footage circulated on Palestinian media showed people rushing to the bomb site to help evacuate the casualties. Bodies were scattered on the ground, while some carried wounded children in their arms before loading them in a vehicle. Three local journalists were among those killed at the school in Shati – Saed Radwan, head of digital media at Hamas Al-Aqsa television, Hanin Baroud, and Hamza Abu Selmeya. Zionist military strikes on the towns of Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia in northern Gaza have so far killed around 800 people during a three-week offensive, the Gaza health ministry said.

One person was killed and dozens were injured on Sunday when a truck struck a bus stop at a major intersection near Tel Aviv. Zionist police said about 40 people were injured to varying degrees, including some seriously, and were taken to nearby hospitals. The attack, in which a truck ran into a bus stop close to a military base, took place around 10 am (0800 GMT), police said, noting the driver - who had Zionist citizenship - was “neutralized” by gunfire from a nearby civilian. Zionist media reported that the attacker was an Arab from Qalansawe in the center of the Zionist entity.

The Zionist entity’s airstrikes “hit hard” Iran’s defenses and missile production, Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, as Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the country was considering its response. However, heavy fighting in Lebanon between Zionist forces and Iran-backed Hezbollah, which sharply intensified over recent weeks, continued on Sunday with a Zionist airstrike killing eight people in a residential block in Sidon, medics said.

“The air force attacked throughout Iran. We hit hard Iran’s defense capabilities and its ability to produce missiles that are aimed at us,” Netanyahu said in a speech, calling the attack “precise and powerful” and saying it met all its objectives. The UN Security Council will likely meet to discuss the attack on Monday, diplomats said.

Khamenei said the Zionist entity’s calculations “should be disrupted”. The attack on Iran, which killed four soldiers and caused some damage, “should neither be downplayed nor exaggerated”, he said. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran was not looking for war but would give an “appropriate response”. Separately, Zionist Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Iran was no longer able to use its allies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon against the Zionist entity.

Gallant added that Hamas was no longer functioning as a military network in Gaza and that Hezbollah’s senior command and most of its missile capabilities had been eliminated. On Sunday, the Zionist military urged residents of 14 villages in southern Lebanon to evacuate immediately and move north of the Awali river. A Zionist strike on Sidon, a city in coastal south Lebanon, killed at least eight people and wounded 25 on Sunday, the country’s health ministry said.

Elsewhere in the south, a strike on Zawtar Al-Sharkiya killed three people and a Saturday bombing of Marjayoun killed five, it said. The Zionist entity said five of its soldiers were killed in south Lebanon fighting. Hezbollah also said it had fired a large missile salvo at the Zevulon military industries facility north of Haifa. Hezbollah rockets hit a house and cars and rescue crews responded to put out the fire. One woman was seriously injured. – Agencies