GAZA: A Zionist airstrike at a hospital in Gaza on Sunday killed five people, including a Hamas political leader, as Egypt put forward a new proposal aimed at restoring the Gaza ceasefire deal on Monday. Palestinian health authorities said Zionist strikes killed at least 65 people in the enclave in the past 24 hours.

The proposal, made last week, follows an escalation in violence after the Zionist entity resumed air and ground operations against Hamas last Tuesday, effectively ending a two-month period of relative calm. Health officials said the Zionist entity has killed nearly 700 Palestinians since it resumed its attacks, including at least 400 women and children. Islamist group Hamas said several of its senior political and security officials had also been killed.

The Gaza health ministry said the Zionist strike hit the surgery department at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Hamas said a member of its political office, Ismail Barhoum, had been killed. The ministry of health said Zionist forces “have just targeted the surgery building inside the Nasser Medical Complex, which houses many patients and wounded individuals, and a large fire has erupted at the site”.

Zionist Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed the target was Barhoum. Hamas’ Al-Aqsa TV said Barhoum was being treated at the hospital for wounds sustained in a previous attack. Video on social media showed a fire blazing on the third storey of the hospital. Another leader in Hamas, Salah Al-Bardawil, was killed in a separate strike in Khan Younis, Hamas said earlier. The Zionist military confirmed it had killed Bardaweel on Saturday. Both Bardaweel and Barhoum were members of the 19-member Hamas decision-making body, the political office, 11 of whom have been killed since the start of the war in late 2023, according to Hamas sources.

Al Jazeera said on Monday that a journalist working with one of its channels was killed in a Zionist strike on his vehicle in northern Gaza. “Hussam Shabat, a journalist collaborating with Al Jazeera Mubasher, was martyred in a (Zionist) strike targeting his car in the northern Gaza Strip,” an Al Jazeera alert said, referring to the network’s live Arabic channel. The territory’s civil defense confirmed his death.

The Egyptian plan calls for Hamas to release five Zionist captives each week, with the Zionist entity implementing the second phase of the ceasefire after the first week, two security sources said. Hamas is still holding 59 hostages, with 24 of them thought to be still alive. Both the US and Hamas agreed to the proposal, the security sources said, but the Zionist entity has not yet responded. The sources said the Egyptian proposal also includes a timeline for the Zionist entity’s full withdrawal from Gaza, backed by US guarantees, in exchange for the captives’ release.

In Rafah, the local municipality said thousands of people were stuck inside the Tel Al-Sultan area, where the Israeli military sent some of its forces, with families trapped among the ruins, with no water, food, or medicine. The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said 50,000 residents remained cornered in Rafah.

UN Palestinian relief agency UNRWA said 124,000 people have been displaced in Gaza in recent days. “Families carry what little they have with no shelter, no safety, and nowhere left to go. The Israeli authorities have cut off all aid. Food is scarce and prices are soaring. This is a humanitarian catastrophe. The siege must end,” it said on X. – Agencies